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to common sense. The Christian Scientist talks as

if his (merely human) activities were set in motion and

pervaded by an atmosphere of Divine potentialities. In

an almost flattering way he, as it were, "stands in" with

GOD, or, as Coroner RoUMlEU bluntly put it at the inquest,he " tries to usurp the special power which CHRIST had."We feel it, further, to be our duty to point out that

apart from evils which may result to individual members

of the community from it, the Christian Science treatment

is neither more nor less than a fin de siècle fad, a drawing-room cult, and that it is the counterpart of the culpablenegligence which has brought the Peculiar People of the lesseducated classes within the range and operation of the

oriminal law of the country.

&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;<-&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;-

THE Public Health Committee of the Lond n CountyCouncil are, we are glad to see, properly impressed withthe need of an active administration for reducing the risksto the London community from the milk of tuberculous

cows. That this risk is in every sense a substantial one

there is no manner of doubt. The subject has been

fully inquired into by two Royal Commissions, whose

recommendations only await the action of Parliament.

if the London County Council adopt, as we anticipatethat they will, the suggestions of their Public Health

Committee, they will seek at once the necessary powers fordealing with this matter, and it is not probable that theywill be refused by the Government.The Public Health Committee have included in their

recommendations to the Council the advice to deal with

the inspection of the meat-supply of London also. Such

inspection is obviously needed, not only on account of

tuberculosis, but in respect of other and obvious conditions.The Committee have been for some time under an instruction

from the Council to report as to the desirability of estab-lishing public slaughter-houses throughout London and asto the facilities which such a system would afford for

the better inspection of the meat-supply of the metro-

polis. In consequence of this instruction Mr. SHIRLEY

MURPHY, the medical officer of the Council, has utilisedsuch opportunities as his holidays have given him-a piece,(9f public spirit, by the way, which cannot be too highlycommended-in visiting certain cities in this country andon the continent and has thus made himself acquaintedwith the system adopted in each for insuring a wholesomemeat supply to the inhabitants. The result of his visits to

Edinburgh, Manchester, Liverpool, Berlin, Hamburg, and

Copenhagen, among other great and important cities, was

incorporated by him last summer in a report to the PublicHealth Committee, in which he showed the inadequacy of the

inspection employed at present in the case of meat consumedin London, and pointed out that for the protectionespecially of the poorer inhabitants, who are the purchasersof the meat which is most likely to be tainted, it was neces-sary that a system of examination of all dead meat broughtinto the metropolis should be instituted, save in cases

where the meat could be shown to have already under-

gone examination in a public slaughter-house. In order to

insure the inspection of meat killed in London Mr.

SHIRLEY MURPHY considered it absolutely necessary

THE INSPECTION OF MILK AND MEAT IN LONDON.

tnat all animals snouio. De kiiiea in public slaughter-houses, where alone an adequate and systematic inspec-tion of the meat could be made. The Public Health Com-

mittee now report that they concur in Mr. SHIRLEY

MURPHY’S views-views which, it should be remem-

bered, and which the Public Health Committee remind the

Council, have received quite recently very exact endorsementin the report of the Royal Commission on Tuberculosis. The

Royal Commission on Tuberculosis held the use of publicslaughter-houses in populous places to the exclusion of

all private slaughter-houses to be a necessary pre-

liminary to a uniform and equitable system of meat

inspection, and recommended that powers should be

conferred on local authorities to declare, as soon as

a public slaughter-house was erected, that no other placeshould be used for slaughtering, a certain short space oftime being allowed for the owners of private slaughter-houses to turn their property to some other purpose.

The resolution which the Public Health Committee invite

the County Council to adopt is as follows and defines exactlywhat the Committee aim at: " That, in the opinion of theCouncil, it is desirable that as a first step towards insuringthe proper inspection of meat private slaughter-houses shouldcease to exist in London and that butchers should in substitu-

tion be afforded such facilities as are necessary for the killingof animals in public slaughter-houses to be erected by theCouncil." We cannot doubt that the Council will adoptthis resolution of their Public Health Committee, foundedas it is upon the personal investigations of their medical

officer and supported by the report of a very able

and painstaking Royal Commission. It may be expectedthat in London, as elsewhere, opposition will be shown bybutchers owning private slaughter-houses. But the record

of the County Council is so good in matters concerning the

public health, their actions have been so judicious and so

open-eyed, that we look forward with confidence to their

support of a much-needed sanitary reform in London.

Questions of compensation may arise and some expensewill have to be incurred in building new public slaughter-houses in convenient situations, but these are small matters

compared to the getting rid of private slaughter-houses,which are the only obstacles to the introduction of an

efficient system for preventing the sale in London of meatunfit for human food.

Annotations.

THE VENTILATION OF UNDERGROUND ELECTRICRAILWAYS.

"Ne quid nimis."

THE substratum of the metropolis is being pierced in alldirections radiating from the City for the construction ofunderground electric railways. The electric railway runningfrom the north end of London Bridge to Stockwell has beenin working order for some years now, and apparently with-out any serious hitch having happened in the arrangements.This is the more satisfactory because this line was the firstin London, we believe, to apply electric motive power onan underground railway. Not very long ago another line wasopened between the Mansion House and Waterloo whichhas already proved a great convenience to the public.

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Other lines are in progress. So far the lines completedshow the indisputable advantage of electric traction oversteam traction, at least for underground railways. The

passages are free from choking sulphurous smoke and theatmosphere is as satisfactory as could be expected underthe circumstances. A recent occurrence on the Waterlooand City Electric Railway would, however, seem to showthat while the pollution of the underground air by smokeis of course avoided no extra precautions have beenmade for securing the adequate ventilation of the tunnel inthe event of emergency. It must not be forgotten that

visible smoke and plainly discerned smells serve afterall in the ordinary underground railway as an excellentindex of the state of the air, but in the absence ofthese things, as on the underground electric railwaysthere is no such guide, and insidious poisoning by repeatedlyinspiring human exhalations is possible, if not, indeed,suffocation. To some extent these conditions were realised

last week on the Waterloo and City line in consequenceof the breakdown of a train. It appears that a train goingCitywards was full to overflowing by reason of a crowd

returning from viewing the Guards on their coming homefrom the Soudan. The motive power was unequal to the loadand the train stopped. The delay was sufficiently long tocause a marked sense of suffocation to the passengers and a

degree of panic, while it is reported also that the lightsfailed. It was fortunate that the stoppage occurred

within a comparatively short distance of the City end, sothat ultimately the passengers could escape by leaving thetrain and walking the rest of the distance. It is assumed,and correctly, that the advance of a train through a tubewhich it closely fits is sufficient to maintain an adequatechange of air in the tunnels, in which case no extra pro-vision for ventilation need be made, but in the event of abreakdown the supply of air would soon be exhausted andthe result might be disastrous and comparable with theawful historic tragedy of the Black Hole in Calcutta.

Either an improved system of keeping up a supply ofair must be adopted on the underground electric railwaysor else a relay of motors must be immediately at

hand at both ends of the tunnel to draw the trainsout in the event of a breakdown. The former course

would be safer, for in the event of a train leaving the railsthe delay would be necessarily great and correspondinglyserious to the imprisoned passengers. The matter must bereferred to the Board of Trade, which we hope in the presentinstance has not committed a serious oversight. Steps mustbe taken, if such by some inconceivable want of perspicuityis not already the case, to remove the awful possibility ofsuffocating a train-load of people. It would be interestingto know whether the underground electric lines in course ofconstruction have included in their plans the provision of anair-supply should any necessity arise.

THE BIRMINGHAM CLINICAL BOARD.

THE prizes awarded by the Birmingham Clinical Board forsuccess in clinical studies in the Birmingham hospitals weredistributed on Thursday, Oct. 6th, in the clinical lecture

theatre of the General Hospital, by Sir William Mac Cormac,President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, whodelivered a brief address on the Scientific Progress of

Surgery and the Importance of Accurate Clinical Observa-tion. Sir William Mac Cormac told his audience that he

had been trained at a provincial hospital and that it wastherefore with the greatest pleasure that he came to

Birmingham to award the prizes. Proficiency in clinicalwork Sir William Mac Cormac considered to be a most

important part of all teaching in medical schools :-" It was to obtain that proficiency in order to cure others

that the student examined the framework of the human

body and the functiolls of every part of it. It would bewell if that knowledge were more extensively acquired, andhe was sure that the better equipped by preliminary trainingin general knowledge and general culture in science theywere when they came to their studies the better able wouldthey be to secure the advantages which clinical studies pre-sented. In order to obtain this proficiency they must, aboveall, develop and train that very precious quality&mdash;the facultyof observation. Many persons saw while they did notobserve. In the wards and elsewhere they had oppor-tunities of cultivating the faculty of observation and allthe great physicians and surgeons of our time and of

past times had possessed it in a large degree, and hadcultivated it to the highest possible point. He need onlyrefer to one who was recognised not only in this countrybut all over the world as one of the greatest of surgeons,the founder of scientific surgery. The record of his lifeshowed what a profound and regular observer he was.Even in his boyhood he used to take his observations ofthe common things about him, of things that, perhaps, mostof them would pass by unheeded, and probably he was avery unpleasant companion, for he often pestered peoplewith questions about which nobody cared and probablynobody knew anything about. That quality of observation,when they had cultivated it, would lead them to see thingswhich otherwise would be quite beyond their ken, to noticeand appreciate facts which others would pass by. No doubt

many students had been amazed at seeing a physician or asurgeon in a ward spot’ at once some disease, or injury, ormalformation which they themselves would not have noticed.It seemed to them a kind of instinct or intuition, but it camefrom a long habit of observation and the long experiencewhich had cultivated that power. He could not too stronglycommend to them the great advantage which it would be tocultivate this faculty."Sir William MacCormac concluded by describing to hisaudience the new clinical laboratory of St. Thomas’s

Hospital. -

URBAN BURIAL.

THE.zVortk American Review for August contains an articleby Dr. Louis Windmiiller entitled " Graveyards a Menace toHealth," which has attracted considerable attention. It will

probably be news to a large number of the readers of

THE LANCET to learn that New York City is as plentifullysupplied with graveyards situated in crowded parts of the-town as almost any old English or continental town, but,according to Dr. Windmiiller, in the early part of this

century graves were in evidence in New York to suchan extent that an Englishman who visited the UnitedStates speedily returned when he found every street

in New York lined with headstones. In regard to-

the objection raised against cremation by members

of the medical and legal professions on the assump-tion that poison cannot be detected in the ashes the

writer of the article says that this view is now generallyabandoned and considers that in suspicious cases intestinesmight be preserved before the rest of the corpse is con-

signed to the furnace, but that in any case fire would

scarcely consume a mineral poison. Here the writer seems to

us to under-rate the heat of the furnaces usually employed,under which many minerals would certainly be volatilised.Dr. Windmiiller goes on to say that when mineral poisonis found in the stomach of a disinterred body which hasbeen embalmed it cannot be considered a conclusive proofof crime because the fluid injected into such bodies usuallycontains arsenic, but such a small percentage of bodies

undergoing interment have been previously embalmed thatthe fact is hardly worth adducing as an argument. Dr.Windmiiller next expresses anxiety as to the soil in the

neighbourhood of great cities if the usual system ofburial is persisted in. If 4000 corpses are crowded intothe space of one acre, the limit in the case of the most

populous graveyard, and if the present rate of mortalityin New York - 20 per 1000 inhabitants - be accepted asthe standard, with a population of 3,500,000 New York