1382 MALARIA IN GREECE.-THE MEDICAL LIBRARIES OF LONDON.

morning urine passed before breakfast is taken and fnot a sample of the 24 hours’ output as is usually thecase. The acidity is determined as are also the phosphatesand the ratio of the phosphates to acidity may thus bediscovered. It is possible, M. Joulie thinks, to gain fromthese factors absolute indications of metabolic changesoccurring in the organs and tissues, whilst definite lines oftreatment are clearly suggested. In the analysis a solutionof saccharate of lime is employed to neutralise the

phosphates, a point which is reached when the fluid becomesturbid owing to separation of the phosphates. The amountof acid keeping the phosphates in solution is thus determined.Full analytical details are given in the pamphlet referred toas well as some interesting clinical observations relating tothe results of the treatment successfully pursued in

accordance with the facts brought to light by this method ofanalysis.

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MALARIA IN GREECE.

ON another page of our present issue we publish anabstract of an address giving the results of some

investigations on malaria in Greece made by ProfessorRonald Ross, C.B., Director of the Johnston TropicalLaboratory in the University of Liverpool. ProfessorRoss has found that in Greece-that small and

outlying country which fills so large a place in the

intellectual and linguistic history of the world-malariais extremely prevalent and, moreover, presents types of

average malignity worse than in the other malarious

countries of Europe. From the discovery made only a

few years ago that malaria and yellow fever are gnat-borne diseases, it was but a short step to devise means ofprevention or at least of repression, and the conspicuoussuccesses which have been already obtained inthis directionas shown in both hemispheres have taken their place amongthe routine measures of preventive medicine. Professor Rossnow argues that there can be no serious difficulty in extendingto the whole of Greece this boon of relief from malaria.Financial aid is the principal requisite and a subscriptionlist has already been opened in Great Britain on

the initiative of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medi-cine. Sir Alfred Jones, the chairman of the school, hasannounced that Her Royal Highness Princess Christian hadconsented to be patroness of the fund in Great Britain andthat subscriptions may be paid to the secretary of the

Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, B. 10, ExchangeBuildings, Liverpool.

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THE MEDICAL LIBRARIES OF LONDON.

Mr. W. R. B. Prideaux of the Royal College of Physiciansof London contributed to the September number of the

Library Association Record a very interesting paper on theMedical Libraries of London, and it is now published by theAberdeen University Press, Limited, in the form of an

18-page pamphlet. In several respects it gives useful infor-mation which is not otherwise readily accessible. Mr.Prideaux classifies the libraries in five divisions, accordingas they belong respectively : (1) to the medical corporationsand the university ; (2) to the general medical societies ;(3) to the special medical societies ; (4) to the medicalschools and hospitals; and (5) to post-graduation places ofstudy. Class 1 is represented by the libraries of the RoyalCollege of Physicians of London, the Royal College of

Surgeons of England, the Society of Apothecaries, and theUniversity of London. With regard to the first two ofthese many historical details are given and, moreover,

passages are quoted from an article which appeared inTHE LANCET of April 23rd, 1836, and in which theadministration and management of these libraries were

criticised with much frankness. The article in questionwas a very favourable review of Dr. (afterwards Sir)

John Forbes’s Select Medical Bibliography." Class 2includes the libraries of the Royal Medical and Chirur-

gical Society, the Medical Society, the British Medical

Association, the Hunterian Society, and the West London

Medico-Chirurgical Society. Class 3 consists of the librariesof the Obstetrical Society, the Ophthalmological Society, theLaryngological Society, the Otological Society, and theBritish Balneological and Climatological Society. Class 4is composed of the libraries of 11 medical schools. Theorder of size, as far as ascertainable, is as follows :-RoyalMedical and Chirurgical Society, about 60,000 volumes;Royal College of Surgeons of England, over 50,000 volumes ;Royal College of Physicians of London, about 25,000volumes; and University College (medical section), over

16,000 volumes. Incidental reference is also made to the

libraries of the Pharmaceutical Society and the RoyalSanitary Institute, as well as to the one which is beingformed by the Pharmacopoeia Committee of the GeneralMedical Council, but there is no allusion to the medicalliterature in the library of the British Museum.

ALCOHOL COMPRESSES IN THE TREATMENTOF INTESTINAL PERFORATION.

Dr. A. Raphael has recently employed alcohol compressesin the treatment of intestinal perforation in typhoidfever, and an account of the results is given in theSemaine Nedicale of Sept. l9th. In one case perfora-tion occurred on the eleventh day ; on the next day theabdomen was completely covered with a layer of cotton-

wool soaked in alcohol, with a waterproof material over

all. After a few hours considerable improvement was

manifest, especially in the state of the pulse. After a week,during which time five litres of alcohol had been employed,the presence of a collection of purulent matter was observedin the abdomen and the compresses were continued until thesixteenth day. Two days later a fistula formed on the

umbilicus which readily permitted the drainage of the

purulent matter. After this treatment the patient recoveredwithout further complicat:ons.

THE NATURE OF JENSEN’S TUMOUR.

IT seems somewhat late in the day to dispute the value ofJensen’s work on cancer in mice after the Walker prize ofthe Royal College of Surgeons of England has been awardedto him and when an International Conference on Cancerhas been rendered possible by the progress which dates fromthe publication of Jensen’s paper in 1903. But we publishin another column a letter from Mr. W. Roger Williams,whose attitude towards the work of Jensen is sufficientlywell illustrated by his suggestion that that observer shouldrefuse to accept the prize and thereby admit that theaward was wrongly made. Mr. Williams’s letter may be

regarded as a sequel to communications made at a meeting ofthe Pathological Society of London by himself and Dr.W. S. Lazarus-Barlow, director of the Cancer Laboratoriesof the Middlesex Hospital. We may say at once that in ourview Jensen, a practising veterinary surgeon, has renderedto experimental medicine services which justly entitlehim to the prize. He has initiated a long series of fruitfuinvestigations and there seems no adequate reason for

suspecting the sincerity of the conclusions reached later byother observers, e.g., Bashford and Murray, Borrel, Ehrlichand Apolant, Haaland, Metchnikoff, and Michaelis. Thefact that Jensen himself left the final demonstration of the

justice of his conclusions to others would be a most unjustargument to employ against his reception of the Walker

prize. Hanau and Moreau showed the reproduction (afterinoculation) in new animals of the histological featuresof the original tumour, but Jensen followed the pro-cess step by step and demonstrated that when the