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the former, the label usually showed coffee in prominentcapitals, whilst the important statement " mixed with

chicory" was hidden away in an unobtrusive position in thebulk of the lettering. These and similar defects in the

Act it was hoped would be remedied by the recommendationsrecently made by the Select Committee on Food Adulteration.An interesting demonstration with the microscope, illus-

trating some methods of modern adulteration, added con-siderably to the interest of the paper.

NURSES AND THE COMMEMORATION FUND.

THE Duke of Westminster writes again to the Times onbehalf of the Queen’s Jubilee Nurses Commemoration Fund,and there is no doubt that Her Majesty is deeply interestedin the problem of supplying nurses to the poor. At present,owing to the exaggerated notions of the training necessaryfor nurses, they are a luxury of the rich or the well-to-doclasses, and the poor and, indeed, the lower section of themiddle classes have to do without them as best they can.But this is only one part of the problem of meeting the careof the sick poor and must yield in importance to thehospital part of it. And there are indications that Her

Majesty would be pleased with any form of commemorationwhich made the hospital provision for the really necessitouspoor more adequate than it is. It remains to be seen

whether the hospitals have friends as energetic and

persuasive as the Duke of Westminster.

THE SERUM DIAGNOSIS OF TYPHOID FEVER.

THE December number of the Canadian Practitionercontains an interesting paper by Dr. J. J. Mackenzie,bacteriologist to the Provincial Board of Health, on theRecent Practical Application of the Serum Reaction ofPfeiffer in the Diagnosis of Typhoid Fever. The writer

gives a short history of the reaction and then describes themethod he has found most satisfactory. This method wasintroduced by Dr. Wyatt Johnston of Montreal. A drop ofblood from a suspected case of typhoid fever is allowed to dryupon a slip of paper and then later, in the laboratory, thedrop is moistened with sterile water and a portion of itmixed with a drop of fresh bouillon culture of typhoidbacilli. This is watched under the microscope, and if thecase is one of typhoid fever in the course of from half an hourto an hour agglutination of the bacilli occurs. Dr. Mackenziefinds that after mixing the culture and the watery extract ofthe blood of a typhoid fever patient as a rule no change isobserved for a few minutes, the bacilli moving rapidly back-wards and forwards through the field with their characteristicmotion. Then it is noticed that individuals stick together inpairs or in threes, moving clumsily, and in a shorttime others join the clumps, the movement becomingalways slower, until finally all the bacilli are tangledtogether in large clumps containing ten or more indi-

viduals and all movements stop. The reaction takes

longer in some cases than in others. In one case it was

complete before the preparation could be placed under themicroscope—i.e., in about two minutes. In the majority ofcases it takes thirty minutes. Dr. Mackenzie states it as his

experience that if there is no evidence of reaction within anhour there is not much chance of its appearing, but it is wellto observe the slides for twenty-four hours. In order to besure of accurate results a very motile culture must be used-

i.e., a fresh one-and it is well to have it so dilute that notmore than, say, from fifty to a hundred bacilli appear in thefield. Dr. Mackenzie has tried the reaction in eighty-twocases, in some of them upon several samples of blood taken atdifferent times. Sixty-one of these were cases of typhoidfever, or subsequently proved to be typhoid fever, and infifty-seven of these he got a positive reaction ; in four he

obtained no reaction. In twenty-one which were not casesof typhoid fever, or subsequently proved not to be typhoidfever, a negative reaction resulted in all ; there were, amongstother non-typhoid cases, tuberculosis, acute dilatation of theheart, articular rheumatism, septicaemia, and blood from

healthy individuals. A number of cases of tuberculosis were

tested, including two cases of meningeal tuberculosis, withnegative results in each case.

THE LANCET RELIEF FUND.

UNDER the heading "THE LANCET as an Agency of

Charity" the Nerv York Medical J01l9’nal of Jan. 23rd, 1897,contains in the form of a leading article an appreciativenotice of our Relief Fund. Curiously enough our contemporaryseems to look upon the Fund as only just established, but,as our readers are aware, the Fund was started in 1889, andon Jan. 9th we published the eighth annual report in ourcolumns. Our contemporary concludes by observing :-

"It is easy to see that by means of this fund numerousinstances of real distress among deserving persons may berelieved, and the regulations are such, we should say, thatit would be difficult for the almoners to be imposed upon.We look upon the undertaking as an outgrowth of purephilanthropy and as exceedingly creditable to the proprietorsof THE LANCET, but we hope that not many of our Britishbrethren will find themselves in such straits as to have toresort to the Fund."

From the final remark it would seem that the services ofmedical practitioners in America are more liberally requitedthan is the case here. The Ne7v York Medical Journal maybe interested to know that during the eight years our Fundhas been in existence 355 applications have been made bymedical men or their widows, and in some of these caseswe are glad to know that the assistance afforded has beenthe means of enabling the recipients to make a fresh andfair start in life.

IMPORTANT DECISION AGAINST A PROPERTYOWNER.

A CASE of great importance, especially as it bears

upon the responsibilities of owners of house-property, hasjust been decided by Mr. Justice Mathews and a jury, theplaintiff being a widow living at Sutton, Surrey. This

woman, the wife of a gardener, sued to recover 1000 asdamages for his death. He lived in a cottage at a shortdistance from which, and on a higher level, were a row ofsimilar tenements belonging to one of the defendants, aCroydon builder named James Manser. The cottages weredrained by means of two cesspools, the overflow going into asoakaway, from which it percolated through the soil. The

consequent nuisance became so bad that the deceased and hiswife had to keep their doors and windows closed, and theman complained to the urban council first (it was alleged) inFebruary last year and subsequently. In May the council’ssurveyor-the urban district council was made a co- defendantbody-took steps to ensure an abatement of the nuisance.For various reasons, however, the evil was not

remedied by Manser and the houses were uncon-

nected with the sewers until July 4th. Meanwhile onJune 25th the gardener was taken seriously ill, Mr. F. D.Atkins diagnosing septic pneumonia. A nurse who took

charge of the case had to leave within a week, being herselftaken ill, and the man died on July 19th. Mr. Atkins most

properly declined to give a certificate on the ground thatthe case ought to be inquired into, and the jury at thecoroner’s inquest found that the death was due to blood-

poisoning caused by bad smells from the overflowing cess-pools. This was the case for the plaintiff. It being shownthat no stoppage in the drain had occurred-the groundapparently of the action against the urban council-that partof the claim was withdrawn, the judge suggesting in the