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appears to be a modified system of compulsory notification ofthe disease. The results of this step in increasing or decreasingtuberculosis will be closely watched by everyone concernedwith the administrative control of tuberculosis. Its relative

success or failure depends upon the skill and caution withwhich it is administered. There is no doubt in the minds of

those who have carefully studied the tuberculosis problemthat the essential factor in administrative action with

reference to existing cases is the early, very early, detectionof the disease. It is early cases which, generally speaking,are alone capable of arrest and it is the arrest of such caseswhich prevents the prevalence of the advanced cases. So

far as we are aware no system of compulsory notification

yet devised has succeeded in securing the notification of

early cases, and certainly failure rather than success will

attend the Irish efforts if any attempt to create what may betermed a I I leper " class is made. If this is likely to be theresult of compulsory notification it will be better that the

House of Commons should delete the provision, or suppressionof cases will certainly ensue. In Sheffield and Bolton, the

only two places in England where notification is compulsory,the compulsion is nominal, and no attempts are, we believe,made to prosecute those who do not notify at all, or notifyonly shortly before the death of the patient, when froma public health standpoint the information is valueless,

seeing that it will shortly be available through the deathcertificate. We gather, however, from Mr. BIRRELL’s answerto one of his critics in the House of Commons that adminis-

tration in this particular is to be " ’ lax " in character, until,that is to say, the people have learnt that they are not to be

forcibly separated from their relatives until they either recoveror die, and that they are not to be compelled to relinquishtheir occupation or to wear labels. Probably a certain

form of moral suasion will be exercised by making admissioninto the local sanatorium or hospital or the receipt of food-a very potent element in the battle-dependent upon notifi-cation. The anti-tuberculosis dispensaries which it is pro-

posed to establish should prove useful.The provisions of this Bill if they become law must not

divert the attention of the Irish people from the conditionswhich give rise to tuberculosis, and greater endeavours mustbe made to seek out and to destroy what may be termed the

breeding places of the disease. We are afraid that otherwise

ten years hence the people of Ireland may be grievously dis-

appointed with the results of compulsory notification and sana-

toriums, and we should be very sorry to see this. It is difficult,as the charts in Dr. H. T. BULSTRODE’S sanatorium reportshow, to make much impression upon the death-rate curvesof pulmonary tuberculosis in places in which notification andsanatoriums are provided, and therefore the Irish people mustnot be discouraged if for many years their tuberculosis death-rate does not decline. Perhaps the shortest way to affept thedeath-rate in Ireland would be by appropriate social measuresto lower the curve gf total pauperism, with which the curveof tuberculosis in Ireland shows a general parallelism. But

those persons who have visited Ireland and have seen the

slums of Dublin and the condition of the cottages in therural districts, and have seen, too, the Irish cowsheds, the

handling of milk and the making of butter, must feel

that until these conditions are improved the anti-tuberculosis

campaign in Ireland may be a very uphill and dis-

heartening fight. In all the circumstances we are gladthat further consideration of the Bill is to be post-poned until the autumn, and in the meantime we trust thatboth the supporters and the opponents of its provisions will

study the literature of tuberculosis. More especially, as

regards the influence of the tuberculous milk of cows, wouldwe commend to their notice the excellent Cavendish lecture

on the Etiology of Pulmonary Tuberculosis delivered recentlyby Sir WILLIAM WHITLA and published in our issue of

July 18th. They should also consider the history of

"leper" legislation as applied to tuberculosis in Scot.

land, where they will find that an endeavour was

here made to render the tuberculous subject practi-’cally an outcast, but that the good sense of the Scottish

people practically demanded the withdrawal of the

penalising clauses. On the other hand, the good resultswhich have been obtained by the helpful system inauguratedby Dr. A. NEWSHOLME at Brighton must be borne in mind.The framers of the Irish Bill have already had regard to the

history of tuberculosis legislation in Scotland, as is shown

by the more statesmanlike character of the Irish measure,

but seeing the social and administrative difficulties with

which the subject bristles we welcome the opportunity forfurther deliberation.

Annotations."Ne quid nimis."

THE ROYAL COMMISSION ON WHISKY.

THE members of the Royal Commission on Whisky haveconsidered it expedient at the present stage of their inquiryto issue an interim report. They have declared that in theiropinion no restrictions should be placed upon the processesof, or apparatus used in, the distillation of any spirit towhich the term whisky’ may be applied as a trade

description." "

Further, they consider that the term, whisky’ having been recognised in the past as applicableto a potable spirit manufactured from (1) malt or (2) maltand unmalted barley or other cereals, the application of theterm whisky should not be denied to the product manu-factured from such materials." " Nothing could be more

definite than these conclusions. They mean that the old andoriginal meaning of the word " whisky " is lost and

that now it may be applied to any spirit whether it

is produced in the pot or the patent still and whether

from malted barley entirely or from a mixture of malt andunmalted grain or even other cereals. The interim reportrecommends, in a word, that the term whisky" shouldhave a generic meaning and apply to all classes of spiritproduced in the several ways just indicated. In manyquarters this pronouncement has been regarded as a triumph,at any rate for the present, for the patent still. We do notthink that it can be so regarded, for in the report the Com-missioners admit, for one thing, that their labours are by nomeans terminated and, for another, that they reserve forfurther consideration the question of the advisability or

otherwise of attaching special significance to particulardesignations such as Scotch Whisky,’ ’ Irish Whisky,’° Grain Whisky,’ and Malt Whisky’ ; of placing restric-tions upon the use of such designations as trade descriptions ;or of requiring such designations to be used in connexionwith the sale of whisky." Important as is their decisionin regard to the use of the word ’’ whisky in a generic.

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sense, we may safely anticipate, we think, that still more

important conclusions will follow the consideration of thereserved questions. Under the plea that patent-still spiritwas better for the health of the whisky drinker the trade,or a section of it, has supplied him with a spirit, or blendedspirit, which cost the distiller much less to produce thandoes a spirit made entirely from malt and in the pot still.The introduction of a cheapfy produced spirit entirelyaccounts, in fact, for the infliction of the question of ’’ Whatis whisky ? " upon our time and attention. The trade has

developed to such a large extent upon these lines that aRoyal Commission has found it unreasonable to withhold

from the adherents of the patent still and unmalted grainthe right to the use of the word " whisky." " We do not com -plain of this concession if we can be assured that later it willbe insisted that there shall be a distinctive label and thatthe words Scotch whisky or Irish whisky, malt whisky, andso forth shall have the meaning which these respective termsso obviously imply. It is in this direction we think that the

public needs protection the most, and we feel confident thatthe Royal Commissioners have made up their minds to givethis aspect of the question their most careful consideration,having regard to the interests first of the community at largeand then of the industry.

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CORPSE MEDICINES.

Nicasius Le Febure, F.R.S., who describes himself as

Royal Professor in Chymistry to His Majesty of England(Charles II.), has left on record in his work, "A CompleatBody of Chymistry" (1670), some very curious directionsas to the preparation of medicines from mummies and

corpses. There are four kinds of mummy medicines, hetells us, the most valuable being derived from "bodies,dryed up in the hot sands of Lybia, "where whole caravansare frequently overwhelmed by simoons and suffocated."This sudden suffocation doth concentrate the spirits in allthe parts, by reason of the fear and sudden surprisal, whichseizes on travellers." " In order to obtain a drug not inferiorto this variety take some young lusty man’s body, of about25 or 30 years of age, dead by suffocation or hanging, anddissect the muscles without loss of their common membrane,and being thus separated, dip in sp. of wine, and

suspend in a place where the air may be dry and passfreely to and fro." In wet weather the muscles must

be hung in a chimney over a small fire of juniper untilthey become as dry and well seasoned as the powdered beefwhich mariners use for their long sea-voyages. Thusyouwill lhave a mummy not inferiour to that of the fourth kind before

described." " Braised in a mortar and " digested," in fimo orotherwise, during a philosophical month," the powder ofthis fifth or Paracelsian mummy, when mixed with spirits ofwine, "old triacle," powder of viper’s flesh, and so forth,becomes a most efficacious balsam. "It is an excellent

internal remedy against all venemous diseases, but parti-cularly against pestilential." The "dosis," according to

Le Febure, is from one to three grains in broths or tinctureof sassafras. Used externally it was held to be most efficaciousagainst bruises and all kinds of pains and it was especiallyto be applied to palsied limbs. Human fat might also beused against the same diseases and required no particularpreparation.

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UNCERTIFIED CAUSES OF DEATH IN IRELAND.

AMONG the defects of public health organisation and

administration in Ireland the excessive proportion of un-certified causes of death calls for special attention. The

quarterly return ’issued by the Registrar-General for Irelandrelating to the first quarter of this year shows that the

causes of 6091 of the 23,353 deaths registered during thethree months ending with March were not certified either

by a registered medical practitioner or by a coroner. Thus

the proportion of uncertified causes was equal to 26 . 1 percent. of the deaths registered in Ireland, whereas in Englandand Wales during the same period the proportion of uncerti-fied causes did not exceed 1.6 per cent. of the registereddeaths. This excess of uncertified causes of death

in Ireland is also well marked in the returns for

its principal urban population. It appears from the

Registrar-General’s annual summary of the weekly returnsrelating to Dublin and 21 of the principal urban districts ofIreland during last year that the causes of 971 of the

23,564 deaths registered were uncertified, equal to 4.1 percent., whereas the proportion of uncertified causes duringlast year in the 76 large English towns, for which the

Registrar-General issues weekly returns, did not exceed0’ 9 per cent. In Dublin registration area the propor-tion of uncertified causes of death last year was

equal to 3’ 2 per cent., whereas in London it did not

exceed 0’ 1 per cent. In the 21 Irish urban districts,the enumerated population of which ranged from 370,163in Belfast to 7588 in Armagh, the mean proportion ofuncertified causes of death was equal to 4’ per cent.

The largest proportions of uncertified causes in these Irishtowns were 12’0 per cent. in Wexford and in Ballymena,13-0 in Limerick, 17-0 in Clonmel, 22-3 in Galway, and24’4 per cent. in Sligo. It may be noted that the highestpercentages of uncertified causes of death during last year inthe 76 English towns were 4-4 in Gateshead, 4-5 in

Warrington, and 5-1 in South Shields. The marked defi-

ciency of death certification in Ireland probably implies theneglect to provide medical attendance during the last illnessof the deceased, but from whatever cause it may arise the

subject is one calling for investigation. It may probably bedue to a great extent in rural districts to sparseness of popu-lation and to practical difficulty in obtaining medical attend-ance, but this difficulty can scarcely exist in the 21 urbandistricts referred to above, and it seems reasonable to

suggest the probability of a definite relation between theexcess of mortality in these Irish town districts, to whichwe have recently called attention, and the frequent neglectto provide medical attendance indicated by the high pro-portion of uncertified causes of death.

MEDICAL TEXTS IN GREEK AND LATIN PAPYRI.

THERE are numerous references to medical matters, as

well as frequently found fragments of ancient medical

works, being recovered among the hundreds of papyriannually discovered in Egypt, which, although of small

importance individually, if taken collectively as their

quantity augments, deserve to be considered because of

their information concerning medicine in antiquity. A short

time ago Herr Kalbfleisch summarised the papyri of this

description stored in London and Berlin in a treatise

entitled "Papyri Græcæ Musei Britanniciet Berolinensis." This work has since been commented upon by Professor

Wesseley who had gained much experience in decipheringsuch manuscripts during his work upon the Rainier papyriat Vienna, and as the science of papyrology is so novel he

was able to emend many of Herr Kalbfleisch’s readings.The celebrated codex of the " latrica " of Menon, a medical

compendium of about the Aristotelian era, first edited byKenyon and Diels, was added to by some further fragmentsof the manuscript which were acquired by the BritishMuseum. These new portions were as far as possiblerestored to their proper positions in the text in an article

by Herr Diels in the proceedings of the Royal Prussian

Academy. The special journal devoted to the study of papyri,the Archiv für Papyrusforschung, in its second yearly volumedescribes a papyrus at Geneva treating upon surgery. It is a

sort of medical students’ catechism, the text containing