study the investigator discovered a new type of crown-gall tumor which he has been able to produce at will by inoculating plants in particular places. This newer type corresponds to the most complex of malignant tumors in men and animals, he said. The scientist also believes that he has shown for the first time that tumors are due to chemical products of bacteria slowly liberated within the cells of the attacked plants.

Carbolic Acid Poisoning.—If a surface burned with phenol be washed at once with vinegar or a dilute solution of acetic acid, the bleaching and anesthetic influence of the acid are such as to at once control the pain. The chemical influence of the two is such that the caustic influence of the phenic acid is destroyed by neutralization. Taken into the mouth, the carbolic acid influence will disappear quickly if it be followed at once by a mouthful of vinegar retained in contact with the surfaces burned by the phenol.-Ellingwood's Therapeutist.

Another Consolidation of Journals.-At about the time that the Medical Review of Reviews was founded, Professor Dillon Brown, of New York, established a semi-monthly journal devoted to the diseases of children, called Pediatrics. The opening article was by A. Jacobi and the leading physicians of the city, among them, J. Lewis Smith, Reginald H. Sayre and William H. Park contributed to its pages. Latterly it has been edited by William Edward Fitch, but Dr. Fitch has recently been appointed a Major in the United States Army, and we have acquired his blue-pencil and subscription list.

Pediatrics will no longer appear as a separate publication, but has been incorporated with the Medical Review of Reviews. Beginning with January, however, the Medical Review of Reviews will contain a special department devoted to Pediatrics. This feature is but one of the improvements scheduled for the coming year. Important Symposia are now in progress, the editor will contribute a second series of Pathfinders in Medicine, a Staff of Associate Editors is being formed, and thus the Medical Review of Reviews, in entering upon its twentyfourth annual volume, promises to be more serviceable to the profession than ever before.

Public Health and the Disposal of the Dead. -Forbes in an interesting article in Medical Officer (Sept. 1, 1917), discusses infection and how it may be guarded against. First and most obviously by wearing post mortem gloves, thus giving the operator a double skin; or by dipping the hands frequently into antiseptic fluid such as biniodide of mercury, in a dilution of 1 in 2,000.

In cases of septic disease, septicemia, puerperal fever. pneumonia, erysipelas, septic wounds and acute abscesses, the operator should

carefully protect the hands with rubber gloves. The infection is carried not by emanation from the body but by actual contact with the fluids of the body, these fluids entering the operator thru a needle prick, thru skin abrasions or thru the mucous membranes of the mouth and nose.

There is nothing to fear from plague patients inasmuch as they have relatively few organisms in their blood. In this country the patient usually dies in a hospital and therefore is not flea infested.

Anthrax is one of the few diseases in which the infecting organism does not die soon after the death of the patient. Smallpox provides us with an infection which does not tend to die quickly with the death of the body. The infection may live on for years in the scab. Undertakers who handle such bodies should have been vaccinated successfully within two years prior to handling the bodies; then they are perfectly safe from smallpox infection.

In scarlet fever the organism probably dies quickly. What to be careful of, as also in diphtheria are the discharges from nose, mouth and ear. It is not believed that the peeling skin in scarlet fever is not dangerous.

Are Moving Pictures Injurious to the Eyes?In summarizing his article Bohn in New Orleans Med. and Surg. Jour. (Oct., 1917) reaches the following conclusions:

1. Moving pictures under favorable conditions do not cause as much fatigue as the same period of concentrated reading.

2. Under unfavorable conditions, moving pictures cause increased fatigue which, if continued, produces symptoms that are unpleasant and may be harmful.

3. Most persons who complain that moving pictures cause ocular discomfort have some ocular defect.

4. Moving pictures, under favorable conditions, act as a slight test of distant eye endurance. A person with no defect of the sight mechanism should be able to enjoy at least four sittings of one and a half hours each per week with no discomfort.

5. By staring fixedly at one object on the picture for a prolonged time, fatigue is greatly increased and unpleasant symptoms are produced. A person should not stare at any one object, but should try to look at different parts of the screen, and should either close the eyes or look about the theatre for a few seconds about every five minutes.

6. Every person has an individual standard of eye endurance. When your eyes become fatigued in a picture theatre, leave.

7. A review of the literature to date records no permanent harm to the eyes from moving pictures. The fact that ten million persons enjoy moving pictures daily with no definite reports of specific harm or injurious effect, and with but few complaints of slight inconvenience, proves that moving pictures, as presented at the average theatre, can have no injurious effect upon the eyes.

CHLORETONE: Ounce vials.

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H. EDWIN LEWIS, M. D., Managing Editor

IRA S. WILE, M. D., Associate Editor

Complete Series, Vol. XXIII, No. 11. New Series Vol. XII, No. 11.

The Gas Attack in Modern Warfare.The degree to which chemistry has entered into modern warfare is indicated by the use of poisonous gases. The Hague Convention prohibited the use of this infernal instrument, but, nevertheless, it has become a weapon of offense and defense horrible beyond description.

According to the Journal of Laboratory and Clinical Medicine, October, 1917, the toxic gases at present employed include hydrocyanic acid, arsenide of hydrogen, hydrogen sulphide and hydrogen phosphide, which are directly and immediately poisonous. A second group includes chlorine, carbon oxychloride, known as phosgene, and various other substances whose effects are to produce death by asphyxiation. third class is not actually poisonous, but serves to cause the victims to retire from action because of intense lachrymation. Among these agents may be mentioned chloracetone, bromacetone and iodacetone.

A

A knowledge of the chemistry and physics of gases is essential for their successful employment. Whether used in waves, in hand grenades, or in shells, climatic conditions and their physical nature determine their effectiveness. The wind. must be moderate and blowing towards the enemies' lines at a rate of approximately thirteen miles an hour. A humidity of 40 to 60 per cent. adds to the certainty of a successful attack.

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To recognize the approach of a chlorine gas wave, strips of blue litmus paper are placed in front of the trenches; a change of their color to red gives the signal of the approach of chlorine.

Efforts at counteracting the malign effects of a gas wave collectively have not achieved satisfactory results and dependence is therefore placed upon the individual gas mask.

The forms, shapes and devices thus far utilized in the manufacture of gas masks vary among the different armies, but the underlying principle is the same. Layers of gauze cover the mouth and nose, after having been impregnated with a neutralizing solution consisting of water, hyposulphite of soda and carbonate of soda. The protection thus afforded lasts for four hours when the gas is diluted to one in one thousand. The mask lacks protective value against carbon monoxide.

The use of liquid fire, incandescent gasoline or flaming phosphorus, is so deadly that protection along ordinary lines is without result.

It is a sad commentary upon the diabolic instrumentalities of war that the chemical industry, which has been of such constructive value in advancing human welfare, should become transformed into a hideous messenger of death against which chemistry itself is but a weak defender.

The training which medical men are undergoing in order to familiarize themselves with the action of poisonous gases and the methods of treating those who have suffered from the fumes, has not held any line of treatment that is fraught with certainty or hope. The initial irritations of the bronchial tract and the profound alterations of the circulatory system are scarcely amenable to specific treatment, and dependence must be placed upon symptomatic therapeutics.

The use of poisonous gases is not to be condoned by saying "this is war." The rights of combatants have always received some degree of consideration in order to preserve the semblance of humanity in war's glorious art. Cruelty, hate, venom and hellish activities have been liberated in spite of the Hague Convention. Some of the triumphs of chemistry in warfare represent the defeat of civilization. The gas attack is but another unfortunate perversion of the potentially beneficent function of chemical science.

Public Health Expansion.-The extent to which the public health movement has grown was well demonstrated in the war program of the American Public Health Association in October. The field of inquiry and investigation has been broadened so extensively that it is difficult to keep pace with the various sub-divisions of public health work in which specialists are being developed.

While tuberculosis, venereal diseases, personal hygiene and army sanitation occupied an important part in the program, the attention which was given to mental diseases, social insurance, public health edu

cation and publicity methods indicated that the social phases of the public health movement have come to the fore with unusual rapidity and activity.

The study of rural health administration, food and drug control, industrial hygiene and community sanitation received a measure of discussion larger than that devoted to the problems of munitions industries. The questions of factory illumination, the prevention of caisson disease, heating and ventilating standards, were found to be competing with papers considering the replacement of men by women in war industries, industrial fatigue and the comparative value of Dakin's solution and tincture of iodine. Examination of milk and water, studies of tetanus bacilli, typhoid and paratyphoid bacilli and gas bacilli were topics invested with greater significance as related to war conditions than when regarded as factors in mortality and morbidity during times of peace. Syphilis, dysentery, meningitis, malaria and pneumonia assumed a new and more belligerent and challenging attitude in the light of the hazards to a greater military force than this country has ever known or contemplated. For the same reason, problems of sewage disposal, drainage and housing attracted more attention than usual.

The field of vital statistics was covered in relation to the records and reports of the army and navy, and plans were discussed for insuring better morbidity statistics of war industries, as well as in hospitals, penal institutions and other places where statistical methods have not been pursued in the accumulation of facts relating to the health, disease and death of human beings, who are under care for social, economic, or public health reasons.

Nutritional problems and sanitary prob