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strong but varied. Several factories in the immediate neigh-bourhood covered the surface with an oily scum ; the waterwas more often the colour of beer, while dead animals of allsorts and sizes floated about according to the wind until theydisappeared." True this refers to 1883, but we fancy mattersare not much better now. "The state of the Lea" is

generally a fruitful source of correspondence in the pressabout this time and the present drought makes it all themore necessary that some means should be taken to check

pollution. -

THE ROYAL COMMISSION ON THE SPREAD OFTUBERCULOSIS FROM ANIMALS.

AN important Royal Commission has just been appointed.Its object is to enquire into the administrative proceduresavailable for controlling danger to man through the useas food of the meat or milk of tuberculous animals. The

commission will further consider what should be the properaction of the responsible authorities in condemning for thepurposes of food supplies animal carcasses or meat exhibitingany stage of tuberculosis. The commissioners are as

follows :-Sir Herbert Maxwell, Dr. Thorne Thorne, C.B.,Mr. G. T. Brown, C.B., Mr. H. E. Claver, Mr. ShirleyF. Murphy, Mr. John Speir, and Mr. T. C. Trench. Dr.T. M. Legge will act as secretary to the commission, thework of which from a sanitary point of view should be of thehighest possible value to the community.

APHASIA IN POLYGLOTS.

IN a recent number of thu Revue de Médecine Dr. Pitres

details a number of interesting observations with referenceto the peculiarities of aphasia as it occurs among patientswho were able to speak fluently more than one language. ;t

appears that such patients do not become aphasic in thesame degree for all the languages which they speak. At

first, as a rule, there is general aphasia, then, as improve-ment occurs, the patient is able to understand and then tospeak that language which he has known longest and withwhich he was most familiar. The capacity for use of theother less familiar languages was acquired later. Sucha conclusion does not of course imply the existence ufdiferent centres for the different languages, but is merelyan illustration of the fact that qualities and capabilitieswhich are acquired latest are most easily lost or impaired byany condition which interferes with the nervous structureswhich underlie them.

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THE MEDICAL DIGEST.

FOR many years the great value of Dr. Neale’s Medical Digest has been known to medical men engaged in literary work. There are, however, many men in active generalpractice who fail to avail themselves of its invaluable

aid in their daily rounds. It is difficult, knowing what thework is, to understand the reason for this. Once the

infinite amount of information upon each and every branchof medical science that can be gleaned by a glance is

realised, no one would willingly be without the book at hisright hand, so as to be able to consult it constantly.We can recommend it as a useful present, and our

knowledge of its great value is the reason why we wish tobring it more under the notice of medical men, for it isindeed worthy of its name, "The Busy Practitioner’s Vade-Mecum." Few works have ever been so unanimously andeulogistically reviewed, and that without a dissentient voice.The Digest published in 1890 represented all that wasknown in medicine and its allied branches during the

previous fifty years, and last year an appendix, bringing thework up to 1895, was issued at a cost of 10s. 6d., the com-

plete book being obtainable for 18s. 6d. Some, we know,fail to understand its value, but this is for want of a few

moments’ study, and our advice is to all practitioners-sendfor the book, and they will thank us for the advice.It is most astonishing how Dr. Neale, in the midst of a busygeneral practice, could have possibly compiled a book

involving such an enormous amount of literary work, butwe believe it has only been done by the devotion of nearlyfour hours a day of incessant labour to it for fifty years.The profession have much reason to be grateful to Dr. Nealefor his unselfish work, but in the natural course of things hecannot carry it on for many years longer, and we trust thatsome provision will be made by which such a valuable workmay be continued. -

TRANSIENT AMBLYOPIA DURING LACTATION.

IV the last number of the Neurologisches Centralblatt

appears a short abstract of a paper in the Beiträge zurAugenheilkunde by Dr. Karl Heinzel. He describes four

cases of transient blindness occurring during lactationand traceable to interference with the functions of the-

nervous system. Such a condition, according to Dr. Heinzel,is apt to occur in otherwise healthy women. The first

symptoms may manifest themselves before the birth of thechild or during the early period of suckling, and consist ofinterference with the function of the eyes which may

proceed to complete blindness. With the ophthalmoscopemay be found evidences of more or less inflammation of thenerve. The duration of the symptoms extends over monthsand usually leads to a partial degree of optic atrophy withperhaps only a just perceptible interference with visual

acuteness, and never to permanent blindness. The inferencethat lactation is in some way connected with the sym-ptoms in these cases was arrived at by a process of exclusion.

PROTANDRIC HERMAPHRODITISM.

HERMAPHRODITISM of any form is rarely met with amongvertebrates, but in a few of the lower members of this largedivision of animals one variety of hermaphroditism occurs.In the hag-fish (Myxine glutinosa) are found both an ovaryand a testis, situated on the right side, those on the left sidenot being developed ; yet though this fish possesses the

generative organs belonging to both sexes they are not

functionally active at the same time, but the testis first

develops fully, while the ovary is still immature, and thenlater in life the testis atrophies and the development ofthe ovary proceeds to completion; thus the young act as

males and the old ones as females. This form of herma-

phroditism is known as protandric or androgynic. Dissected

specimens of three myxines, showing the generative organs inthe various stages of development, have recently been addedto the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.Protogynic hermaphroditism, in which the female organsdevelop first, is almost unknown in animals, but is by nomeans rare in the vegetable kingdom; it is met with, forinstance, in Euphorbia cyparissias.

INFANTICIDE BY MEASLES IN ENGLAND ANDSCOTLAND.

THE mortality from measles has proportions that callfor more attention from sanitary authorities than it receives.There is this most significant difference between this mor-tality in different classes of the community: in the bettersort of practice the mortality from measles is almost nil.Some practitioners with well-to-do patients have possiblynever seen a fatal case of measles in their practice, thoughthe disease is often highly pyrexial. But the number ofdeaths from it now in the large towns of England and Walesand of Scotland exceeds greatly the number from scarlet

fever or diphtheria, or from both of these put together.This mortality has been described lately by writers in theNineteenth Century as a form of murder. It is sufficiently