Injuries to the eyes directly resulting in blindness, because both eyes were injured, or because sight had previously been lost from other causes in twenty-four instances as follows:

Those described as injuries of the head, six in number, had no primary involvement of the eyes-one boy was struck on the temple with the end of a rope, which resulted in blindness at end of a week. In two there was no history. In three the injury was by a bullet. In one case causing detachment of retina in one eye, and resulting in a degeneration of the other eye-ball. In two cases the bullet either directly cut off the optic nerves where they cross or caused pressure to be made on them, resulting in their atrophy of them.

This number taken with the 40 blind from sympathetic ophthalmia makes a total of 70 or 15 per cent in which an injury was the starting point of the disease of the eyes.

Sympathetic ophthalmia is a term applied to the disease which ensues in an eye, whose fellow has been the seat of an injury or disease previously, and wherc no other cause can be found for the disease. excepting the injury or disease in the injured or first eye involved. There were 40 such pupils, in 35 of whom the cause of original injury in the fellow eye was known, as follows:

Of the twenty-five where the time was known, in 14 instances the second eye was involved during the first year.

In the whole range of surgery there is no question more fully agreed upon than the injurious effect frequently excited by an injured eye upon its fellow, and no treatment more clearly indicated than the removal of the injured eye in such cases.

In considering the causes as here set forth, I wish to especially call your attention to some of those usually considered as preventable, viz.:

or 30 per cent of the entire number. Durr in 1885 found among the pupils in the blind asylum at Hanover that in 46 per cent the blindness was unavoidable; in 14 per cent it was questionable as to its avoidableness, and in 40 per cent it was certainly avoidable.

Hasket Derby, in Boston, found among 183 pupils examined, there were 50 cases, or 27 per cent of avoidable blindness. These were 34 cases of ophthalmia neonatorum, 4 of trachoma, and 12 of sympathetic ophthalmia.

It is readily seen that a large proportion of cases of blindness is avoidable, and by a better knowledge of the pathology and treatment of eye diseases we can reasonably expect to lessen the proportion of blind to the total of population.

This has been done, as shown by the census in various countries. In the United States in

1880 there were

976 blind to the 1,000,000.

1890 there were 808 blind to the 1,000,000.

In England and Wales there was a proportionate decrease.

1881 there were 879 blind to the 1,000,000.

This diminution in the proportion of blind people to the total of population can be accounted for by the more general use of antiseptics, especially in the care of cases of ophthalmia neonatorum, the diminution in the number of cases of small-pox which frequently had eye complications, by enforced vaccination, and to the general improvement in our knowledge and methods of the treatment of diseases of the eye.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Norris and Oliver, System of Dissases of the Eye, 1897.

Hasket Derby. M. D., Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. CXXI, No. 17.
Henry Noyes, M. D., Diseases st the Eye.

Hockenhull Building.

MEDICAL INSPECTION IN THE SCHOOLS.-The record of the work accomplished by the medical inspectors in preventing the spread of contagious diseases in the Chicago public schools should have greater weight in determining the action of the board with reference to continuing of the system than any arguments that may be advanced along the line of retrenchment or economy. The value of the work to the whole community should also outweigh any objections from parents who may have suffered from personal inconvenience from the inspection. A statement of the work accomplished by the medical inspectors show that during three and a half months of the last school year 76,000 examinations were made and 4,539 cases of contagious diseases were discovered and excluded from the schools. Since September 17th of the present year 7,249 examinations have been made and 510 contagious cases have been excluded. The argument of economy cannot have much force against such a showing of preventive efficiency as this. If the medical inspection system has kept the schools from spreading epidemics it is worth many hundred times the cost of its maintenance. Indeed it would be difficult to calculate the money value of such a service. The fact is the medical inspection system should not be disturbed under any pretext whatever. Its cost is trifling compared to the benefits that accrue to the community through the inspection. It would be a very short-sighted policy to cut off this safeguard against epidemics in the schools on the score of economy, while large sums are being expended for the nonessential of a common school education. Medical inspection in the public schools of a city of this size is absolutely essential as a measure of public safety.-Chicago Times-Herald.

Report on Microscopy-Malaria.

BY S. E. MUNSON, M. D.,

SPRINGFIELD, ILL.

Read before the Brainard District Medical Society at Jacksonville, Ill., October 25, 1900. HREE varieties of the plusmodium malaria have been described, namely, the tertian, quartan, and estivo-autumnal parasites. The three varieties differ from each other in a number of a ways. The chief differences are the length of the cycle of development; the size of the full grown organisms; the difference in the refractibility of the organisms; the quantity, size and color of the pigment-granules; the degree of ameboid movement, and the number and shape of the segments into which the full-grown organisms divide. In the earliest stage the varieties of organisms cannot be distinguished from each other.

The tertian parasite completes its cycle of development in about fortyeight hours; when it has attained its fullest growth it almost fills the corpuscle, which has become larger than normal. This organism is more refractive than either of the other two. The pigment-granules are more numerous, finer, and more reddish-brown in color; the ameboid movements are much more active; the segments are more irregular in shape and more numerous than those of the quartan parasite, varying from twelve to twenty in number.

The quartan appears to complete its cycle of development in from sixty-four to seventy-two hours. The full-grown organism does not fill completely the corpuscle, and the latter is not increased in size. The organism is more refractive than the tertian parasite. The pigment-granules are fewer in number, coarser, and have a darker red color. The ameboid movements are slower; the segments are more symmetrical and less numerous than those of the tertian parasite, varying from six to twelve in number, segmenting organisms are more numerous in the peripheral circulation than in the case of the tertian parasite.

The estivo-autumnal parasite cannot be studied so thoroughly in the peripheral circulation, because the latter development and segmentation take place in the internal organs. The cycle of development is not definitely settled, but is about twenty-four hours. The full-grown organ is smaller than the tertian, and the corpuscle which contains it is often smaller than normal, and more or less distorted, crenated appearance. After the fever has lasted about a week crescent-shaped bodies make their appearance. These bodies are not a result of segmentation, but appear to be a further development of the normal hyaline bodies. They contain granules of coarse pigment in the center,

SOME OF THE METHODS USED IN STAINING THE PHASMODIA.

(a) The fixed cover glass is stained from one to two minutes in a concentrated aqueous solution of methylene blue. This staining solution should be filtered before using. The specimen is thoroughly washed in

water and mounted in Canada balsam. This stains the organism and the nuclei of the white corpuscle blue. The red corpuscle is unstained.

(b) A good contrast stain can be obtained with eosin and methylene blue. The fixed specimens are stained for from five to ten minutes in a 1⁄2 per cent solution of eosin with 60 per cent alcohol washed in water, dried, placed in a concentrated aqueous solution of methylene blue for thirty seconds to one minute, washed, dried and mounted in balsam. The red blood corpuscles are stained a bright red, the nuclei of the white corpuscle and the malarial organism blue.

(c) Other contrast stains used with eosin are Loeffler's solution of methylene blue and Dellafield's hemotoxylin, staining from two to three minutes. This stains the organism blue.

(d) Erlich's tripple stain is probably one of the best for this purpose; with this the specimen is only stained one-half to one minute, dried and mounted. This stains the red blood corpuscles a copper color. The neutrophiles and malaria organisms a greenish blue.

(e) Dr. Lazear, U. S. A., Havana, Cuba, in a paper read before the American Medical Association at Atlantic City in June, since died of yellow fever, claimed the method of most value was that of Romanowsky. Its special merit is that it brings out the nuclear material or chromatin distinctly and in a color peculiar to itself.

This method is as follows: A saturated aqueous solution of methyleneblue and a 1 per cent aqueous solution of eosin are kept separately. The older the methylene-blue solution the better the results. The specimen is heated as before, not less than thirty minutes.

The staining mixture is made just before it is to be used. To one part of the filtered methylene-blue solution are added about two parts of the eosin solution. This mixture is carefully stirred with a glass rod, but not filtered, and poured into a watch glass. The cover glass preparations are allowed to float upon the top of the fluid with the blood surface down. The specimens are covered by another inverted glass, and the whole by an inverted cylinder, which is moistened on the inside. Good specimens are obtained in one-half to three hours. Three colors are thus obtained. The red corpuscles stained red by the eosin, the malarial parasites a prussian blue by the methylene-blue, and the nuclear chromatin a violet color.

AT a centenary celebration of the Royal College of Surgeons, which was held in London on July 26, Drs. W. W. Keen, of Philadelphia, and R. F. Weir, of New York, were given diplomas of honorary fellowship in the college.

PUBLIC BATHS.-One million nine hundred and fifty thousand bathers availed themselves of the privileges of Boston's public baths during June, July and August last. St. Louis, though a larger city and with the Mississippi at her door, gives the public no such opportunity.