Time will not admit of more than a mere mention of the relations between meteorological phenomena and the mortality from many other diseases and affections, such as apoplexy from heat, sunstroke, liver diseases, yellow fever, cholera, whooping-cough, measles, etc., especially as the state of our knowledge on the subject is so very limited. A comparison between the mortality from several diseases in this and other countries shows that certain of these do not prevail under closely corresponding conditions. Thus the curves of mortality from whooping-cough, typhoid fever, and scarlet fever do not correspond with the curves of temperature in both London and New York, and the same may be said of diarrhœa in India. It is therefore evident that some other cause or causes than a varying temperature must be concerned in the production of an increased death-rate from these diseases. The subject is of great importance, and I do not despair of our obtaining some day a knowledge of the agents through which meteorological phenomena act in the production of increased and decreased death rates from certain diseases, and the means by which, to a certain extent, these injurious effects on man may be presented.
P. Rosenbach has found experimentally that potassium bromide diminishes the sensibility of the cortical substance of the cerebrum to electric excitement, while, the excitability of the underlying white substance remains unaltered.
CONSUMPTION SPREAD BY CHICKENS.
In a village, C., near Weimar, where for many years no case of tubercular phthisis had taken place, two years ago several families suddenly discovered one of their members to be suffering from the disease. After a long inquiry, it was discovered by accident that all these families had been buying their spring chickens from one and the same place, viz., from a private hospital in the neighborhood. A medical student brought the livers of two such chickens to Prof. Johne, in Dresden. The student, whose own sister had become affected with consumption, had lived during his vacation at home with his parents, in C., and he had there at dinner observed the peculiar appearance of the liver of the chickens.
On examination, both organs were found to be full of tubercular bacilli. A thorough investigation was at once instituted, and it was then that the fact came to light that the chickens eaten by the families, members of which had been affected with tuberculosis, had all been brought from the institution mentioned. On further inquiry at the latter place the following facts were elicited:
At about the time when the first case of consumption occurred in the village, an inmate or the hospital, Mrs. R., had died of the disease. Before her death, Mrs. R. used to feed the chickens raised there; she was often seen first to chew the meat before she gave it to the chickens. Further, the spittoons were emptied on a place in the yard where the chickens generally came to pick up any stray corn.
As none of the chickens ever came in contact with any animals in the neighborhood—the hospital being situated at a considerable distance from the village—as no disease had happened among them until the arrival of Mrs. R., when soon after an epidemic seemed to break out among them, and many died, there is no doubt that they contracted the disease from Mrs. R., and in return infected those who ate their flesh.