scholarship, will be a literary pleasure and. tor the benetlt ofthose who have forgotten their Greek it may be expectedthat a translation will soon be forthcoming. It would be

singular, if it is true as has been alleged that the poeticgenius of the race shows sinister signs of diminution in

recent years, that the balance should be redressed by therecovery of masterworks of the classic muse. Within some-

thing like a decade the lost poems of Herondas, Bacchylides,and now the great ode of Timotheos have been restored tous and it is not too much to anticipate that thee are butprecursors of a greater harvest.

THE PRODUCTION OF ARSENICAL GASES BYLOW ORGANISMS.

IT is curious and not a little startling that the fungusconcerned in forming the green mould on cheese or on jamsis an arsenic eater, and there can be little doubt that this

power of certain low organisms of assimilating arsenic hasin some cases accounted for the poisonous symptomsensuing upon sleeping in rooms furnished with arsenical

wall-papers. It has been shown that many of the

moulds when placed in suitable nutrient fluids contain-

ing arsenic will gradually assimilate the arsenic, ultimatelyexpelling it in the form of arsenical gas. In this waya comparatively inert arsenical compound may be con-

verted into a powerfully poisonous gas. The action of the

fungus may easily be demonstrated. For example, if a rawpotato be taken and a very weak arsenical fluid be brushedon its freshly cut surface and inoculated with one of thearsenic-assimilating moulds, such as the common penicilliumglaucum or the mucor mucedo, a persistent odour will sooneror later be developed unmistakeably like garlic whichis due to the evolution of arsenical gas. A sop of

bread may be substituted for the potato and is said

to give even more marked results. So readily do thesefungi select the arsenic that they have been employed, so tospeak, as detectives of the poisonous metal when present inquite minute quantities. In fact, these low organisms havebeen employed in toxicological investigations, the test, it isstated, being more delicate than chemical methods. In thesame way the presence of arsenic may be detected in wall-

papers, in dye-stuffs, or other fabrics which may be

examined directly without the preliminary trouble of destroy-ing the organic matter, which is often necessary in chemicalmethods.

THE HEALTH OF WAGNER.

IN a leading article which appeared in THE LANCETof March 7th, p. 672, we discussed the theory put forwardby Dr. G. M. Gould of Philadelphia as to the relationbetween dyspepsia and eye strain. Dr. Gould took as

instances the following five well-known workers, all of

whom suffered from dyspepsia-De Quincey, Carlyle,Darwin, Huxley, and Browning-and maintained that theyall suffered from some error of refraction. Mr. W. Ashton

Ellis, M.R.C.S., is now issuing an English version of Herr

Glasenapp’s "Life of Richard Wagner," although he hasadded to the original German some interesting details

founded upon lately discovered Wagner records. In Vol. III.,a book of some 500 pages representing but 100 of Herr

Glasenapp’s work. we find many allusions to Wagner’s stateof health. He seems to have suffered much from dyspepsia,together with all the troubles attendant on the toxsemia set

ap by that condition, and in particular we note that while hewas writing the Niebeltongen Rin.q he complains of constantheadache. Mr. Ashton Ellis considers that this headache

was due to migraine, and certainly the symptoms of whichWagner complained were very much those of migraine,although he talked about the pain being like a sharp knifecutting into the nerves of my brain.

" In the experience of ‘

most people, however, the migraine pain is more like a blunt ]

well-known cause of migraine and it is quite possible thatWagner suffered from such errors. Migraine, however, is

common in highly wrought persons of the artistic tempera-ment, and Wagner lived his life to the full and was moreoverby no means a normal person. Poet, dramatist, revolutionist,a musician without compeer in his own particular line, onewith a mastery of the orchestra comparable to that of

Swinburne over words and rhythms or of a mediaeval archi-tect over stones and the intricacies of tracery and groining,what wonder that the mere physical body sometimes gaveway under the nervous strain with which Wagner’s art

treasures were produced. -

A STRANGE METHOD OF COMMITTING SUICIDE.

IN a leading article which appeared in THE LANCET of

Oct. 5th, 1901, p. 921, entitled "Peculiar Methods of

Suicide," we mentioned the case of a man who killed him-self by means of an ingeniously constructed guillotine. Asimilar case has recently been reported from Rheims. A

man procured a spade, sharpened the edge, and fixed theimplement, blade downwards, to the end of a carpenter’sbench which he weighted heavily. He then placed a blockof wood under the same end of the bench in such a fashionthat the block could easily be removed and so let the benchfall together with the sharpened blade. When these pre-parations were completed the man lay down and placed hisneck on a thick piece of wood directly under the spade andknocked the supporting beam away with the result that hewas immediately decapitated.

ON ASPIRIN AS AN ANALGESIC IN CARCINOMA.

IN the Allgemeine TViener Medizinische Zeit’ung ofMarch 17th Dr. Gustav Breuss of Vienna strongly recom-mends the use of aspirin for the relief of pain in inoperablecarcinoma. Numerous observations have been made on theanalgesic effect of aspirin in neuralgias and other painfulaffections, but only very few on its use in carcinoma. Dr.Witthauer 1 gave doses of one gramme of aspirin once or twicedaily in three cases of inoperable carcinoma with beneficialresults. Dr. Merkel obta:ned good results in a case of

severe rectal carcinoma by the administration of four grainsin small doses, and several other observers agree as to its

usefulness in uterine carcinoma. Dr. Breuss has made a

trial of it in several C’1.ses, chiefly of this last disease, andhas been in all cases gratified by the result. He uses one-

gramme powders and administers two or three daily. He

believes that it postpones the ultimate use of morphiainjections very considerably and even when these are un-avoidable renders a smaller quantity effective.

THE DANGERS ATTACHING TO THE PERSIST-ENCE OF MECKEL’S DIVERTICULUM.

THE diverticulum of Meckel, the persistent vitelline oromphalo-mesenteric duct, is found in no small proportionof cases, but fortunately it is only rarely that harm resultsfrom its presence, for at many a necropsy it is discoveredwhen the history makes it clear that it has never givenrise to any symptoms. In two or three ways this

"vestige," however, is dangerous. When the diverticulumis unattached by its extremity it has but little tendencyto produce any morbid effects, but if it is attached

by the tip it may readily lead to acute intestinalobstruction by pressing on and constricting a coil of bowel.Many cases of this occurrence have been recorded and a

large proportion end in recovery if an early laparotomy is

performed for relief of the obstruction, for the patient is

generally a youth or a young adult and stands the operation .

well. There is, however, another mode by which the

diverticulum may cause symptoms. Should the finger-likeprocess become inverted into the cavity of the ileum, it will

1 Therapeutische Monatshefte, October, 1900.