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the day of the strain to the day of his death. Therewas testimony which justified the inference that thestrain was much more than the ordinary strain ofwork. But the fundamental mistake of the countycourt judge lay in his having asked himself if theheart strain was or was not the sole cause of death ;the true question was whether it did or did notcontribute to the death. This principle was laiddown by the House of Lords in James v. Partridge,Jones and Co. (1933), where a dipper at some iron-works suffered from angina pectoris.The Court of Appeal was in doubt at first whether

the Hilton case should not be sent back for a new trial.As, however, there was enough material to establishthat the heart injury was due to the cranking up ofthe lorry and had been a contributory cause ofdeath-in the words of the statute, a personal injuryby accident. arising out of and in the course of theemployment-the Court of Appeal awarded compensa-tion to Mrs. Hilton and put an end to the litigation.

SCOTLAND

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT)

THE NEEDS OF GLASGOW UNIVERSITY

Sir Hector Hetherington, the new principal of theUniversity of Glasgow, has been pointing out thatsome of the departments require larger staffs and thatfinancial aid is wanted for the permanent equipmentand maintenance of the University’s work. In

addition, there are certain departments, such as thoseof geography and psychology, which ought to have,not a lectureship, but a full professorship. The newdepartment of chemistry, he told the general council,will not only exhaust all the capital there is in sight,but will add considerably to the ordinary runningcharges of the University. Glasgow, he said, is the

only university in the whole country wherebenefactions given for scholarships greatly exceedthe benefactions given for other purposes. Thus

during a period of six years Glasgow received ;E47,000for land, buildings, equipments, and endowments,whereas in the same period no less than 130,000 wasreceived for scholarships which, valuable though theyare, do not aid the University directly. In contrastto Glasgow, Edinburgh received 300,000 in capitalbenefactions, and in addition 100,000 in scholarshipmoney.

ANTISEPTICS

Presiding at the Cameron prize lecture deliveredin Edinburgh last week by Prof. C. A. Browningof Glasgow, Prof. Sydney Smith remarked that

previous holders of the prize include Pasteur, Lister,Behring, Manson, and Ehrlich. Prof. Browning’stitle was Therapeutical Antiseptics, but he confinedhimself to the question of chemotherapy and localbacterial infections. In relation to their toxicproperties for bacteria, he said, the acriflavine andproflavine compounds were much less toxic for themammalian body as a whole than substances such asmercuric chloride. The field of chemical substancesinvestigated has been a very wide one. One difficultyhas been that when small animals are inoculated eitherinfection does not take place at all or the animal dies.It was found, however, that a good imitation of ahuman wound infection can be obtained by inoculatingguinea-pigs with diphtheria, and in the treatment ofsuch lesions acriflavine has given better results thancarbolic acid or saline solution. Likewise in experi-ments on intraperitoneal streptococcal infectionsit was found that a considerable majority of animals

treated with acriflavine survived, whereas theuntreated controls all died. Other observers haveinoculated wounds with streptococci and found thattreatment with acriflavine and proflavine is moreeffective than excision of the wound. Prof. Browningholds that these antiseptics act by damaging thevirulence of the organisms and that it is not immediatekilling of the organisms that is responsible for thecure. The flavines are known to be actively absorbedinto the circulation, but experiments have shownthat they are not carcinogenic, nor has Prof. Browningfound that they inhibit healing process. Blacklockhas demonstrated active mitosis in sections of woundsthat have been treated with these dyes. Antisepticscannot be expected to penetrate into the interior ofcells or into masses of necrosed tissue and theycannot be maintained in sufficient concentration inthe blood to exercise a useful bacteriostatic actionthere ; nor can they be directed to internal organs-with one exception, which is the urinary tract.Acriflavine by mouth or intravenously producesantiseptic urine in which neither B. coli nor staphylo-cocci will survive. Intestinal antisepsis has not beenobtained. Mellanby tried the effect of acriflavineon transportable mammalian tumour and on trans-portable fowl sarcoma ; the latter, which is believedto be due to a virus, was unaffected, while the formerdid not grow on transplantation.

IRELAND

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT)

THE VICE-PRESIDENT ON SOCIAL SERVICES

ON Oct. 28th Mr. Sean T. O’Kelly, vice-presidentof the Executive Council of the Irish Free State andalso Minister for Local Government and PublicHealth, addressed the Dublin Chamber of Commerceon " Social Services." He described the expenditureon the school medical service as being, perhaps, themost valuable and productive part of the expenditureon public health. Public affairs, he said, were besetwith grave perils which could be averted only by theunflagging pursuit of social justice. He recognisedthe importance of voluntary effort in regard tosocial services, and held it necessary that they shouldflourish side by side with statutory effort. To indi-vidual initiative and voluntary effort were due

virtually all the social services conducted under theaegis of the State at present. New laws in relationto social services were mere machinery ; the drivingforce must be found in the spirit of the men andwomen of the country. Speaking of housing, Mr.O’Kelly said that at the beginning of his programmehe estimated the housing need as 75,000 houses ;up to the present 35,226 had been provided. Thecurative system of the country in the county anddistrict hospitals and similar institutions was under-going a real transformation. When the plans as

regards hospitals had come to fruition he would claimthat as regards hospitals the country would besecond to none in the world. Important as werecurative measures, preventive measures were stillmore important. The real hope of improving adulthealth and physique lay in attacking invalidity atits source in childhood. The results of such servicescould not be seen in a day, but in years to cometheir value would be apparent in the diminution ininvalidity and mortality. He quoted some of thefindings in the school-children inspected in the cityof Dublin last year. The number inspected was