1511THE CLOSED WINDOW.—"LES AVARIES."

with chemical substances should be subjected to control inregard to the amount and kind of preservative used, and thatif any legislation were to be adopted it should be insistedthat the seller must declare by label or in some other waythe fact of a food containing such preservative. In a

word, we urged that legislation should be directed againstthe abuse rather than against the use of preservatives. The

recommendations which the Preservatives Committee havenow drawn up after hearing the evidence of 78 witnesses,and after appointing a sub-committee to visit other countries,the inquiry having extended over two years, are practicallyidentical with THE LANCET’s representations. Thus, the useof formaldehyde is to be forbidden entirely while salicylicacid is not to be used in a greater proportion than one grainper pint in liquid food and one grain per pound in solidfood. The use of any preservative or colouring matter what-ever in milk offered for sale is to be constituted an offenceunder the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts. It is to be lawfulto use certain boron compounds in cream, but the amount isnot to exceed 0-25 per cent. expressed as boric acid. (Wesee no gain in insisting, as is recommended in this clause,that the amount should be stated on the label.) The

only preservative permitted to be used in butter is

also boric acid or borax and the proportions are not

to exceed 0’5 per cent. expressed as boric acid. No o

chemical preservatives whatever are permitted to be usedin any dietetic preparation intended for the use of invalidsor infants, while the use of copper salts in the so-called z,greening of preserved foods is prohibited, though to this ’’,recommendation one member of the committee demurs.

Lastly, to provide against the introduction of new and

pessibly objectionable preservatives it is recommended thata separate court of reference should be established or

a new obligation should be imposed upon the Local

Government Board to exercise supervision over the use

of preservatives and colouring matters in food, and to

prepare schedules of such as may be considered inimicalto the public health. As we have said, we hope to returnto the subject more fully next week, although in the mean- Itime we are glad to state that with the general trend of z,recommendations of the report we are in entire agreement, Ias will be gathered from the views expressed in our icolumns both before the committee were appointed andduring the time of their deliberations.

THE CLOSED WINDOW.

THE absolute importance of a sufficient supply of pure airto all persons under all conditions is a subject upon whichwe never lose an opportunity of laying stress. We are glad,therefore, to add our support to the emphatic testimony of acorrespondent who addressed the TYc-strui-nster (/m:dte

recently in a letter with the above heading. The gist of

this gentleman’s remarks was that he always slept with hisbedroom window wide open, that in the daytime he wasequally careful to be liberally supplied with fresh air,and that he used cold water freely. Now, there is

not the slightest doubt that this doctrine, thoughperhaps carried to an extreme, is sound in foundation.

"Colds," whatever their exact etiology, are commonlycaught from sudden or prolonged exposure to temperatureconsiderably lower than that usual at the time. Such

exposure presumably lowers the resistance of the individual,and it does so mainly because his resistance is not habituallyeducated in the manner described by the writer whom wehave quoted. A hardihood of the vaso-motor system, if notof the body generally, is certainly obtained by a healthyperson who habitually exposes himself freely to freshair and the daily test of a cold bath. We havepointed out recently the atmospheric iniquity of most

public buildings, but in private life there is no excuse,

except among the poorest, for deficient quantities cf

fresh air. Unless there are special reasons for the contraryevery person should sleep with his bedroom window open,and copious supplies of air, if not of sunlight, too. should

be constant visitors in his sitting-room, even thoughthis looks upon a London street. Fresh air and sunlightare the great natural germicides. Medical men must

constantly teach the public that if only these two are con-stantly sought they provide a prevention that will do awaywith the need for the cure now unhappily so often soughtin vain in an open-air treatment. The open-air treatment iswanted in everyday life. It can be so largely introduced as.to save thousands from the necessity of giving up their livesto curing the tuberculosis which they would never have con-tracted had they indulged earlier in free air. In an articleon the " Degenerative Results of Deficient Ventilation inthe Journal oJ’l3alncoloy and Clirn(dology the writer pleadsfor legislation to limit the minimum ventilation allowablein every assembling-place or habitation for human beingsand for dairy cows and horses. The vast influence for

evil-partictilarly in the matter of tuberculosis, ansemia, andcolds, the forerunners of lung disease-that is exercised bydeficient ventilation, places the matter on a level of im-

portance sufficient to demand legislative interference.

Legislation, though, is a slow remedy. Public opinion canin the meantime effect a vast improvement. There are-

always hundreds of eager enthusiasts waiting for a ene. Theywill seldom get one more worthy, never one less harmful,than the formation of an "open-window league." Such a

body, formed for the propagation of sound principles of van-tilation and hygienic atmospheric conditions, may confidentlycount upon the support of the medical profession. There

are, however, we must admit, two great difficulties in the

way of the always-open window, in London at any rate.The first is the noise, and the second the amount of dirt andsoot in the air. which make everything in a room filthyunless the incoming air is filtered in some way.

"LES AVARIÉS."WE recently alluded to certain medical plays which have"

appeared in France, and made mention of Les lzccrios. theproduction of which has, we understand, been interdicted.M. Eugene Brieux describes Ts lvci.ies as a playhaving for its subject a study of syphilis in its relation to

marriage ; the piece, lie says, contains nothing of a natureto cause scandal and contains no obscene word. The

play is divided into three parts. The first scene takes placein the consulting-room of a medical specialist who is called

upon to advise a patient, ’’1’Avarie." " M. 1’.varie. if for con-

venience he may be so called, is a young man wlio was

about to make a successful marriage, a marriage indis-

pensable from a worldly point of view, and otherwise desir-able because he loves his fiancée. The preliminaries havebeen settled and the marriage contract is signed. Then:.1.

1’Avarie, although rather a good young man (pas <?CM’<:’//7’ ni

d&eacute;bmlc7z&eacute;), has the misfortune to contract syphilis in the usualmanner, whereupon he consults the physician and learns thatfor him to marry in his present condition will be a crime, thevarious ills which might affect his wife and children being dulypointed out to him. The physician comforts him by sayingthat in the course of three or four years a real cure can withcare be effected. M. l’Avari6 promises that he will not

marry. At the beginning of the second Act it is discoveredthat M. 1’Avarie has married the lady and they have a baby,aged some months. M. 1’Avarie, to his credit it must be

observed, had postponed the marriage for a time and hasundergone some quack treatment which is credited with

having caused the disappearance of the prominent symptomsof his malady. All goes well and the marriage is a success.M. 1’Avarie’s mother is extremely fond of her grandchild

1512 THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE ADRENALS.

and sees him as often as possible, for the child is out atnurse. LTnexpectedly she returns with the nurse and the

child, for the country doctor has ordered that wet nursingshould be given up and that the child should be fed with abottle. Then the grandmother, wishing to get at the root ofthe matter, consults a specialist who, as every experiencedplaygoer must expect, turns out to be our friend of the first

Act. The doctor asks to see the father of the child and

recognises his old patient. Madame 1’Avarie has escapedinfection but the child has not. The wet-nurse ought nolonger to run the risk of danger. So says the physician.But the grandmother wishes the nurse to stay, otherwise thechild might die. What matter if the nurse runs a risk ? Ifshe were infected they could pay her. However, the nursechooses to go and demands her money, whereupon M.1’Avarie refuses to pay. Then the nurse, touched in her

pocket, turns on him and tells him that she knew the

nature of the illness and Madame 1’Avarie overhearsthe end of the conversation In the third Act a new

character appears, the father of Madame 1’Avarie, a

" depute." " He is received at the hospital by the

physician who presumes that he has come to get someinformation for use in the cause of hygiene. He has in

reality come to obtain a certificate from the physician twoenable him to sue for a divorce for his daughter who hasreturned to him. The physician declines. He also advisesthat the nature of the child’s illness should be kept secret. 1

A cure is possible. A public scandal can never be 1obliterated. He advises pardon, hope, and patience- 1

patience for the present and hope for the future. So the play (

ends. That the scabrous theme of hereditary syphilis, iwhich has already been used as a motif by Ibsen, is here E

treated by M. Brieux discreetly may be true, but the pro- 1duction of such work at a theatre cannot be recommended. tThe lessons in practical life and morals may all be sound and IJ

forcibly inculcated, but most people expect recreation and ithe creation of pleasant emotions at the theatre ; they do not (want instruction in the pathological sequelae of venereal a

disease. We trus. that the play will not get a public f

hearing. -

t

THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE ADRENALS.

Dr. Hans Strehl and Dr. Otto Weiss contribute an

article to a recent number of Pfliiger’s <lre7tiv which con-tains the results of their researches on the physiology of thesuprarenal capsules on which they have been engaged for thelast three years in the Physiological Institute of the Uni-

versity of Konigsberg. They first occupied themselves withthe question of the importance to life of these organs. Uponthis point there has been much difference of opinion. Brown-

Sequard in particular, who removed them entirely from thebody, thought their presence was indispensable to life,since death was the invariable consequence of their removal.

Subsequent experimenters, like Tizzoni and Nothnagel,opposed this statement, but in their method of opera-tion the organ was not removed but only broken downin sittc. Neither by Brown-Sequard nor by the above-

named observers was any dissection made to deter-

mine the presence or absence of accessory adrenals.Dr. Strehl and Dr. Weiss find that such structures, the

presence of which, of course, invalidated the results of

both sets of observers, are to be found occasionally in rabbits;in two cases they were situated behind the vena cava and inanother in the substance of the cortex of the kidney, whilsttwo of the size of a bean were discovered in a cat whichhad survived without apparent injury the removal of bothadrenals. Their operations to determine the results of totalextirpation were performed on dogs, cats, rabbits, guinea-pigs, rats, mice, a hedgehog, and a weasel, and upon frogs ;for those made on rabbits, mice, and rats albinos were

, selected. The removal was usually effected by laparotomyin the linea alba, though occasionally through the back cfthe animal, the right adrenal being first removed on

account of the greater technical difficulties attending theoperation. Asepsis was carefully effected in every in-

stance. Experiments were performed upon a number of

other animals from which only one suprarenal capsulewas removed. They were uniformly fatal in the ca-e

of guinea-pigs, but the other animals appeared to

suffer little inconvenience except that two dogs and a

cat became thinner. In the animals which died after

removal of both adrenals the symptoms observed were greatmuscular weakness and apathy ; the gait was vacillating, thelegs straggled, and the head was depressed. The tempera-ture slowly fell. The blood-pressure was found to be

diminished to the extent of four or five millimetres of

mercury after the removal of one adrenal, but when thesecond one was extirpated the blood-pressure at once fell20 or 30 millimetres and continued to fall more slowly tilldeath ensued. Transplantation of the adrenals even into partthat were highly vascular, like the substance of the liver orkidneys, was never successful. Dr. Strehl and Dr. Weiss pointout the difficulty of determining with certainty the cause ofdeath, some attributing it to loss of nerve-power, others tothe adrenals secreting or producing a substance which,entering the blood, keeps up the blood-pressure, and othersto the adrenals destroying some substance proceeding fromthe muscles or other tissues and accumulating in theblood after their removal which would otherwise exercise adeleterious influence on the blood-pressure. The experimentsin favour of the last-named view are that animals die muchsooner after ablation of the adrenals if their muscles have ebeen previously tetanised ; whilst the injection into frog ofthe plasma of blood of warm-blooded animals from which theadrenals have been removed proves fatal, acting like curarein paralysing the end-organs of the motor-nerves generally.On the other hand, the researches of Oliver and Scha,ferand other observers seem to show that some substance is

formed by the adrenals the action of which is to maintainthe blood ’pressure.

-

BELATED HONOURS TO MEDICAL WORTHIES

AN Italian contributor writes from Florence, Nov. 22nd:The Medical Congress which recently sat at Yi:a wound upits proceedings by an’impressive, if very tardy, acknowledg-ment of the obligations conferred on that seat of learning bythe great anatomists and nature-students Andrea Vesalioand Andrea Cesalpino. The former, though not an Italianby birth, made Italy the scene of his most effective work,leaving on anatomy in all its departments the marks oftrue genius in research and of an expository power at onceluminous, artistic, and fascinating. To commemorate theseservices a tablet inserted in the facade of the old Church ofOur Lady of Snow (Santa Maria delle Nevi) opposite theUniversity bears the following inscription :&mdash;

In questo edificiofu l’anfiteatro anatomico

dello Studio Pisanodove per primo insegnu

Andrea Tesalionegli anni 1543-1545

Ottobre, 1901.

(In this edifice was the anatomical amphitheatre of thePisan University, where for the first time Andreas Vesalius

gave instructions in the years 1543-1545. October. 1901.)At the unveiling the Senatus Academicus, the students, andall the members of the Congress were present and the

spokesman was Dr. Guglielmo Romiti who worthily holdfthe chair from which Vesalius taught. Professor Romiti

gave a brilliant sketch of his illustrious predecessor’s career,dwelling emphatically on the spirit of independence withwhich he investigated nature, even though it brought him