Much attention has lately been drawn to the fish trade of London. It has not, however, come out in evidence that the fish retailers, if they find a quantity of their perishable wares entering into decomposition, send out late in the evening a messenger, who, watching his opportunity, throws his burden down in some plot of building land, or over a fence. When I say that I have seen in one place, close alongside a public thoroughfare, a heap of about fifty herrings, in most active putrefaction and buzzing with flies, and some days afterward, in another place, some twenty soles, it will be understood that such nuisances can only be occasioned by dealers. To get rid of, or at least greatly diminish, carrion-flies, house-flies, and the whole class of winged travelers in disease, it will be, before all things, essential to abolish such loathsome malpractices. The dustbins must cease being made the receptacle for putrescent and putrescible matter, the destruction of which by fire should be insisted upon.
The banishment of slaughter-houses to some truly rural situation, where the blood and offal could be at once utilized, would be another step toward depriving flies of their pabulum in the larva state. An equally important movement would be the substitution of steam or electricity for horsepower in propelling tram-cars and other passenger carriages, with a view to minimize the number of horses kept within greater London. Every large stable is a focus of flies--Journal of Science.
ON THE RELATIONS OF MINUTE ORGANISMS TO CERTAIN SPECIFIC DISEASES.
At the recent Medical Congress in London, Professor Klebs undertook to answer the question: "Are there specific organized causes of disease?"
A short historical review of the various opinions of mankind as to the origin of disease led, the speaker thought, to the presumption that these causes were specific and organized.
If we now, he said, consider the present state of this question, the three following points of view present themselves as those from which the subject may be regarded:
I.--We have to inquire whether the lower organisms, which are found in the diseased body, may arise there spontaneously; or whether even they may be regarded as regular constituents of the body.
II.--The morphological relations of these organisms have to be investigated, and their specific nature in the different morbid processes has to be determined.