A W e e k ly N ew s p a p e r a n d R e v ie w .

BUM VOBIS GRATULAMUR, ANIMOS ETIAM ADDIMUS OT IN INCCEPTIS VESTRIS CONSTANTER MANEATIS.

From the B r i e f o f H is H o lin ess P iu s IX . to T h e T a b l e t , fu n e 4, 1870.

V ol. 76. No. 2636.

[R e g is t e r ed a t t h e Gen e r a l P ost O f f i c e a s a N ew s pa p e r .

C hronicle of t h e W e e k : Page

,A Cure for Consumption— Lord Salisbury at the Guildhall— Stanley’s Rear Column — Further Developments— The Extradition o f Castioni Refused — Railway Disaster near Taunton— Fire at Wellington Barracks—Wreck of a British Cruiser— Opening of the Greek Chamber — The French Chamber—The Missing Archduke " — The Irish Delegates in America —The Jews in Russia—The Abbot o f Solesmes— The London County Council— The New York Stock Exchange—¡Railway Accident at Primrose Hill . . . . . . 761

L e a d e r s :

Stanley and the Rear Column . . 765 Empress and P ope.........................766 Irish Educational Inequalities . . 767

CON T

L eaders (Continued) :

Page

Pastels at the Grosvenor Gallery 768

N o t e s . .

769

R e v iew s :

Memoir o f Sir James Marshall,

C.M .G . . . . . . . . . 7 7 1 An Appeal to Unitarians . . . . 771 Biblical Commentary on the Pro­

phecies of Isaiah.. . . . . 772 Tn’e Honourable Miss ^ .. . . 773 Annals o f the Propagation of the

Faith ......................... ..7 7 3 Moral Theology . . . . . . . 773 The Life o f St. Thomas Aquinas 773 Cantica Sacra ............................ 774

Aspects of Anglicanism . . . . 774 Proselytism by the Holbeach Guar­

dians . . , ......................... ' . . 775

ENTS.

C orrespondence :

Rome (From Our Own Corre.

spondent) . . . .

Page

. . 777

Dublin (From Our Own Corre­

spondent).................................... 779 L e t t e r s to t h e E d itor :

Sir George Stokes on Immortality 780 Anglican Saints . . . . . . 780 The Archbishop of Dublin at the

Catholic Medical School . . . . 780 The Pope’s Civil Princedom . . 783 The Case of Violet Nevin . . . . 785 A ppeals to t h e C h a r it a b l e . . 785 M a r r i a g e .......................... . . 786 Social a n d P o l it ic a l . . . . 786

F rom E veryw h ere . . ;M ,

Page . . 786

SU PPLEM EN T . D ecision s of R oman C ongrega­

t io n s . . . . . . . . . . 793

N ews from t h e S chools :

New School at Psestwich.. . . 793 Royal University of Ireland . . 794 Religious Examination in P ly­

mouth . . \ . . . . . . 795 The Status o f Pupil Teachers . . 795 About E d u c a t io n ........................... 796

N ews from t h e D io ceses :

Southwark . . ..

797

Clifton ...................................... 797 St. Andrews and Edinburgh . . 798. A b e r d e e n ...................................... 798

Rejected MS. cannot be returned unless accompanied with address and postage.

CHRONICLE OF THE WEEK.

A CURE FOR CONSUMPTION.

‘ O R many years past there has been a growing belief that consumption is an infectious and not an hereditary disease. The fact that whole families have been cut off by it is thus attributed not to heredity but simply to the constant intercourse between the healthy and the afflicted, •which makes infection so easy. This view was strongly urged some 40 years ago by the late Dr. Budd in connection with his investigations in connection with “ cholera fungi ; ” and he laid great stress upon the undoubted fact that consumption when introduced into a new country •spreads among the inhabitants with extraordinary rapidity and virulence. This view seems now to be a demonstrated certainty, and fits well with the fact that many other kinds o f illness are directly due to the multiplication o f minute parasitic organisms in the blood and tissues o f the sick person. Many forms o f microscopic fungi or bacteria or bacilli can be cultivated, made to grow in suitable media, and to reproduce their kind. They can be identified and recognised with certainty by their reaction on certain colouring agents and by their modes o f growth. Not only are they found to be the invariable attendants upon certain forms o f disease, but they produce these diseases when artificially introduced into the animal body. Fortunately also, [by different methods o f cultivation, and exposure to different temperatures, the activity o f these bacteria can be either lessened or increased, and inoculatibn with cultivation o f diminished activity is found to secure in the case of many diseases complete immunity from the ordinary consequences o f inoculation with the same bacteria in- their most virulent form. With scientific discovery in this stage, Dr. Koch some eight years ago began to experiment for a remedy for the ravages which are produced by the bacillus of tubercle,

■ which when it invades the lungs becomes the cause o f the disease known to us all as consumption. In his now famous address before the International Medical Congress o f Berlin, he stated that various substances were found capable o f checking the growth o f the tubercle bacillus in a test tube, but were ineffective when tried on tuberculous animals. Persévérance, however, met with its reward, and

■ '. ' - » 1• y- • . '• ••' ♦ •'•'* »'•

: - • *

• •

f ; N e w S e r i e s , V o l . X L I V . , N o 1 ,14 5 . '

Dr. Koch announced that he had at last found a substance which will stand both tests, will stop the growth o f the bacillus not only in the test tube but in the animal body also. A t first the experiments were made upon guinea-pigs, animals which are specially liable to consumption, and it was found that after they had been operated upon with this unnamed substance they showed no reaction to tubercular material. Moreover, in guinea-pigs, already the subject^ o f advanced tuberculosis, the disease can be completely arrested and without any injurious after effects.. 1F rq fn 'th e guinea, pig the Doctor passed on to man, and we are assured with the happiest results. A s far as the English public has been permitted to know, it would seem that the method will differ from vaccination by being curative instead o f preventive. In other words, we are not to expect inoculation with cultivated bacilli o f reduced activity, but the introduction into the system o f something which will forbid ordinary bacilli to thrive. There seems every reason, therefore, to believe that we are in the presence o f one o f the most magnificent discoveries o f the age, and that a dreadful disease, which has been in a special way an English sorrow, is about to be wiped out from the world. And even amidst our first triumph over this wonderful medical success it is impossible not to think o f the poignant whisper which will come from many a bereaved and desolate home— “ Too late.”

The Prime Minister has seldom spoken l o r d Sa l i s b u r y ¡n a more genjai m00d than in the speech t h e g u i l d h a l l , which he delivered at the Lord Miayoris banquet on Monday. His customary desire to say bitter things o f his opponents, that itch to irritate, which so long ago earned him the title o f “ a master o i flouts and jeers and sneers,” was either absent or held w$f under control. He began by hailing the visit o f the son o f the Tsar to India as a guest o f the Queen and the Indian Government as an omen for the peace o f the world. Referring to the recent Anti-Slavery Congress, Lord Salisbury said that it had resulted in the adoption o f a scheme for the suppression o f the slave traffic which will stamp out utterly and without recall the remnants that still exist o f that dreadful trade. A t present, however, the opposition o f one o f the smallest o f the European Powers is allowed to prevent even the beginning o f this good work. Lord Salisbury, therefore, expressed a diplomatic hope that Holland would find it possible to desist from an opposition which threatens to wreck one o f the noblest enterprises in which Europe has. ever been engaged collectively. It is always usual for a Minister, if possible, to have one bit o f good news to tell at this annual banquet, and Lord Salisbury was able to