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qualified by age continues now at work in trade establish-ments in spite of evident inability to stand the wear andtear, and evidently with the full approval of parents andmasters. It is not clear, indeed, how the fact of incapacitycan possibly be proved, however it may or may not be

guessed at, without medical supervision. We cannot,therefore, see what advantage to the child can result froma change of the existing law in this particular.

THE OLIVE OIL TREATMENT OF GALL-STONES.

WHEN some years ago some cases of successful evacua- ttion of gall-stones in attacks of biliary colic following the tingestion of large quantities of olive oil were published they 1were received with some incredulity, which passed into ‘ridicule when it was found that the oil itself was

evacuated in the form of saponified pellets. Nevertheiess, fthe practice was not abandoned in some quarters, and from time to time further successes were claimed for this singular form of medication. Recently Dr. Rosenberg has related .,three such cases (cited in the Gaz. Hebd., No. 8). The firstwas a patient aged thirty-six, who had suffered from oall- ]stone for several years and had been treated without result.The gall-bladder was enlarged. The patient during twoweeks drank a litre of olive oil with only once vomiting, andat the end of that period the liver and gall-bladder had notablydiminished in volume. She had remained free from colic

eighteen months after the treatment. The second case wasthat of a workwoman aged thirty-seven, who was attackedwith biliary colic. There was slight icterus, which always in-creased at the menstrual periods. The liver reached for three&ngers’ breadths below the ribs. She was given 200 grammesof the oil mixed with a little menthol and the yelk of egg.Next day the pains had disappeared and the liver hadlessened in size. The jaundice and pruritus persisted ; soanother similar dose was administered, when these signsalso disappeared. For several days after she passed biliarycalculi. The like result was obtained in a third case, agedthirty-eight, after nine years’ suffering from attacks of

hepatic colic unrelieved by many " cures " at Marienbad and Carlsbad, although on each occasion she had passedsome small calculi. Rosenberg states that of twenty-onecases treated on this plan there are only two in which itfailed. He found by experiment that large doses of oliveoil increase considerably the flow of bile and diminish itsconsistence. And he mentions, on the authority of Cantani,that in Italy, where olive oil is taken largely as an articleof diet, gall-stone is less frequent than in other countries.Lastly, Rosenberg would not advise recourse to this remedyuntil other methods had been tried and failed ; but, as hetruly says, it may well be prescribed before advising recourseto cholecystotomy.

THE POWERS OF CORONERS.

WE have just received a short account of an inquest held;at Litlington, Cambridgeshire, by the county coroner,Mr. Palmer, a solicitor, who appears to us to have beenmuch too liberal in his remarks upon the action of a memberof our profession, Mr. Balding of Royston, who is a magis-trate of the same county, and himself a coroner of anadjoining county. The inquiry arose upon the deaths oftwo children, who had been killed by the father when, nodoubt, insane. Mr. Balding, who had been telegraphed forby the medical attendant of the unfortunate lunatic, inorder to secure his prompt removal to an asylum, arrivedtwo hours after the occurrence of the tragedy. Mr. Balding,acting as a magistrate, decided on sending the man to anasylum with as little delay as possible. Before the necessary forms could be completed the police appeared upon the scene, and were recommended by Mr. Balding not to take the man Into custody. This, we believe, was not contrary to law, and

certainly in accordance with the dictates of humanity, as allwho have any experience of lunatics confined in police cellsmust at once admit. Few of our readers are aware of thetechnical difficulties in carrying out the law bearing onsuch cases with the promptitude which, from a medical pointof view, is obviously required. At the inquest held on thebodies of the two children two days subsequently, thecoroner, so far as we are able to judge, seems to havestepped beyond his province in severely criticising theaction of Mr. Balding, which had nothing whatever to dowith the cause of death of either child. It is impossiblethat it could have been so, as Mr. Balding only arrived atthe scene of the tragedy two hours after the crime hadbeen committed. We fail to see on what grounds the coronerwas justified in even alluding to this, nor can we under-stand how this could be sumeiently material to the inquiryto necessitate it being recorded on the depositions in orderthat it might, as the coroner said, come under the notice ofthe judge at the assizes. This case, however, raises thevery serious question of the grave disadvantages underwhich criminal lunatics are placed when detained by thepolice, and who, when once incarcerated, must there remainuntil removed by special order of the Secretary of State.

A CASE OF ARSENICAL POISONING.

A CASE is recorded by Kovacs in the Wiener Med.Wochenscht. of arsenical poisoning due to a singlelarge dose of arsenic, which presents many points ofinterest. The patient, a man forty years of age, took noless than two drachms and a half of white arsenic. In .

about an hour the usual symptoms of severe gastro-intestinal irritation followed, which were subdued byappropriate treatment. A week later, however, symptomsof affection of the peripheral nerves developed. There werefirst oedema and coldness of both lower limbs, and a weeklater some anaesthesia of the feet, lightning pains, andunsteady gait, and anaesthesia began to make its appear-ance in the upper extremities, beginning in the finger-tips.The muscles of both upper and lower limbs wasted andbecame extremely soft, and fibrillary twitchings were fre-quent. The knee-jerks and superficial reflexes were

absent. After four weeks’ treatment the ataxy passed offand the muscles regained their former bulk. The last

symptoms to disappear were the pains and paræsthesia.In some other cases observed, the " latent period" betweenthe time of taking the arsenic and the development of thenervous symptoms has been even longer, as much as fourweeks in a case recorded by Seeligmuller ; and these casesare a warning not to give an absolutely favourable prognosisin cases of acute arsenical poisoning, even when the acutesymptoms have entirely passed away.

A BABY-FARMING SOCIETY.

IT may well be doubted if the annals of crime in anycountry can show anything so revolting as the recent

exposures with regard to baby-farming in Warsaw. For a

period which can only be guessed at a regular system ofchild murder appears to have been carried on in the ancient

capital of Poland. One person alone of several implicatedhas admitted participation in the criminal death of fiftychildren, while the operations of the band and its agentsare said to have extended over the whole of Russia. As

regards the means by which the long series of crimes wasaccomplished, or the inducements to their commission, wehave no certain information. So far no such ghastlycatalogue has marked the history of infant life in this

country, though recent experience forbids the too sanguinehope that vigilance and legislation have abolished the

practice of baby-farming. On the contrary, there is goodground for believing that it still maintains a somewhat