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of the disease in the U.S.A., Dr. Hugh S. Cumming,surgeon-general of the Public Health Service, statedthat during the last two years endemic typhus hadshown a tendency to spread to the country districts,this invasion being preceded or accompanied by anincrease in the rural population of rats from whichthe disease is transmitted to man by the same fleawhich transmits plague. In his report on typhus inRumaibia, Prof. Danielopolu remarked that the casefatality (9 per cent.) at the present time was con-siderably less than it had been during the war, whenit had exceeded 20 per cent. Apart from the years1916-18, for which no statistics were available, thehighest number of cases (56,042) was reached in 1919.The number subsequently fell until a minimum (1377cases) was reached in 1931 followed by recrudescencesin 1932 (1787 cases) and 1933 (1805 cases). As regardsSoviet Russia, Prof. Syssine of Moscow reported thatsystematic studies of the aetiology, epidemiology,diagnosis and specific treatment had recently beencarried out in the numerous institutes of epidemiologyand microbiology throughout the country. The mostimportant conclusions reached had been first the

long duration of the infectivity of lice amounting totwo months after the termination of an outbreak,and secondly the biological differences between thevirus of endemic typhus and that of the epidemic form.Specific vaccine prophylaxis and serum treatment inSoviet Russia as in Rumania appear to be still in theexperimental stage.

SENSATIONAL CANCER REPORTS

THE October number of the Monatschrift jÜ1’Krebsforschung contains a report on the scientific

congress held in the first week of September atFrankfort-on-Maine under the chairmanship of Prof.W. Kolle. All the members of the congress hadbeen personally invited, and about fifty workers fromabroad accepted the invitation. At one of the

meetings the claim of Dr. W. v. Brehmer to havediscovered the causative organism of cancer 1 wasdiscussed and criticised. As a result Prof. Kolleissued a statement to the press in which he expressedhis doubt concerning this discovery, and deploredthe manner in which it had been broadcast. Aneven more strongly worded protest was issued tothe press by the German Government and by thepresident of the Reichs-Gesundheitsamt. Thesedeclarations, reproduced in the same number of theMonatschrijt, warn the public against acceptingBrehmer’s claims to have discovered new methodsQf diagnosis and treatment. No sooner had this

sensation been disposed of, than a new one madeits appearance. Dr. Klein, who is working in thebiochemical laboratory of the 1. G. Farben-fabriken at Ludwigshafen, read a paper in which heclaimed to have succeeded in isolating from mam-malian tumour an "agent" by which he couldtransmit cancer to other animals without the inter-vention of living cells. He assumes the existencein the animal organism of substances capable of

destroying cancer cells, basing this view on workof Freund and Kaminer published 25 years agowhich has not hitherto been accepted as valid.Dr. Klein further claims to have elaborated a methodof diagnosis based on the presence in normal blood ofthese cancer-cell destroying substances, which makesit possible to distinguish between a healthy personon the one hand and a person who is either sufferingfrom cancer or liable to develop cancer on the other.In order to prove that a person, who is free from

1 See THE LANCET, Sept. 15th, 1934, p. 60 9.

cancer, but who has responded to a test indicatingliability, has later developed cancer, a history wouldbe required of at least 20 years. The test had beenapplied in a number of hospitals, and although thework has apparently been carried out only over a shortperiod, it is stated to have given 95 per cent. ofcorrect results. Lastly, the claim is made that byconcentrating these protective substances in certaintissues a means has been found for the treatment ofcancer. Dr. Klein’s claims amount to nothing lessthan a complete solution of the cancer problem, andtheir detailed publication will be awaited withexpectation, tempered by the memory of the dis-

covery only last year of a cancer remedy based onFichera’s work which seems to have been abandoned.

THE NEW WESTMINSTER HOSPITAL AT

BRITISH INDUSTRIES HOUSE

THE equipment of the new Westminster Hospital,to be built at St. John’s-gardens, Millbank, will bea very big undertaking. With a view to affordingassistance to hospitals in general, and to the West-minster Hospital in particular, the directors ofBritish Industries House at Marble Arch have putforward a suggestion, which has been accepted and isnow taking shape. The scheme is to erect on the

ground floor, adjacent to the model hospital section,suites of rooms in accordance with the specificationssubmitted to the building committee of the West-minster Hospital. The first suite of six rooms is now

nearing completion and will soon be available for thereception of equipment by manufacturers desirous ofsecuring hospital business. This suite comprises amatron’s and nurse’s rooms, complete with bathrooms,lavatories, shampoo rooms, and so forth. When theserooms have served their purpose and the selection ofsuitable articles has been made by the WestminsterHospital committee, the suite will be demolished andreplaced with other rooms, all built to scale. Sinceat least two years must elapse before the new hospitalis completed, this new section will afford continualinterest to those entrusted with hospital constructionor maintenance elsewhere, and should be the meansof saving time and money. The centre is open dailyto all interested in hospital management on presenta-tion of a professional card.

DR. CHRISTINE MURRELL

LAST May, at a meeting of the Medical Women’sFederation in Sheffield, the desire was expressedthat the services of Christine Murrell to medicalwomen should be recognised in permanent form.Dr. Murrell was an ex-president and honorarytreasurer of the Federation, but the meeting con-sidered that her claims to be remembered were basednot on her connexion with the Federation but onher well-known services to the medical profession,recognised just before her death by election on theGeneral Medical Council. No money that theFederation may command can be devoted to otherthan the work of the body, so that an appeal forsome permanent recognition of Dr. Murrell must bemade, not only to the members of the Federationoutside their subscriptions and to their friends, butto all the profession if any substantial sum is to beraised. Dr. Violet Kelynack, medical secretary ofthe Federation, states that if all the members ofthat body contributed l0s. 6d. each, 5::750 would be

forthcoming, and commends the movement to thesympathetic interest of the whole profession. Thesuggestion of the Federation is that a memorial post-graduate fellowship to benefit young women in