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clinics. They wear a sort of uniform, consisting of clean linen suits and slippers, and thereby look vastly better and more wholesome, than if they were allowed to wear their own, generally dirty clothes. The wards are fitted with hot water tubing and small coils for each bed, for the local application of heat to the eyes, by which the application may be made constant and uniform for as long a time as is desired. It certainly is the best thing I ever saw for the purpose. It would also be possible, though not so easy, by any means, to use a similar system of piping for the distribution of cold water, for cold applications. The wards are provided with large shutters to the windows, by which nearly absolute darkness can be secured. In this Egyptian darkness, cataract and similar operated cases are made to sit or lie out their times of probation. The hallways are large and light, and in them, upon a "Heidelberg chair" the cataract operations are performed. Large photographic copies of the Sommering bas reliefs to von Graefe's memory hang in the halls leading to the clinic room. This room, though small, is beautiful. A high arched ceiling-the walls hung with elegant drawings and engravings, professional, of course, the light coming in through one very large window, and the scrupulous cleanliness, contrive to make it one of the nicest clinic rooms in all Germany.

There are treated here annually between five and six thousand eye patients and Prof. Becker holds public clinic five days in the week, before a class of twenty or twentyfive students. Heidelberg is quite an ophthalmological center, for every summer during the last of August, or early in September, the ophthalmologists from all over Germany and even from other countries, assemble for a brief session of society work, and to exchange views on the most recent advances in their specialty.

The Ear Clinic of Prof. Moos, is not so favored in the matter of building, or rooms, and one has to mount some three flights of stairs, past the scenes of various sorts of domestic occupations before reaching it, for it is obscurely set in the top story of an ordinary apartment house. How

ever, plenty of good solid work in the ear emanates from this almost inaccessible altitude.

Prof. Erb is a good clinician, and has the faculty of percussing a chest so that the note may be heard all over the clinic room or hospital ward. Arnold's pathological courses are sought after, like those of v. Recklinghausen in Strassburg, and it is not easy to gain entrance to his laboratory courses after the semester has begun. One of the things worth seeing connected with the university is the famous chemical laboratory of Bunsen, whose director, although now seventy-six years old, is still in active service as a professor.

Another noteworthy feature of the university is its celebrated carcer or prison which has the honor of having once held Prince Bismark, as an offending student, and the walls of which have been grotesquely decorated by the artistic hands of generations of student prisoners.

There is a dreamy something in the air of Heidelberg, tempting one idly to enjoy life; to row or float upon the Necker, to clamber about the famous old castle, or to stroll in some of the thousand delightful walks of those wooded hills that overlook the little old town and its ancient university. There are numerous little wine shops across the river and in the vicinity, where, if you are so disposed, you may play the part of Silenus, and in your mellower momments wish that the great tun in the castle cellar were filled for the fourth time, for the especial and private use of idle and pleasure loving students.

OUR FOREIGN LETTER.

It is curious to notice the ubiquity of many epidemics. Last spring an epidemic of scarlet fever, measles and whooping-cough broke out apparently simultaneously in Paris, Vienna, London, and, in fact, all over Europe. This corner of the globe did not escape, and what is also curious the epidemics were marked by the same peculiarities wherever they appeared, a feature being that measles and scarlatina, contrary to what has been their wont, attacked

grown-up people and those who had previously had it, as readily as children and those who had hitherto escaped. Moreover, the cases of measles seemed to have lost that character for mildness which we have been accustomed to expect of them, several cases under my own management proving fatal, whereas I had previously never lost a case. These epidemics still continue-at least in the large towns, and, indeed, in London are worse than they have ever been as far as numbers are concerned. Scarlet fever heads the list, and the authorities have found great difficulty in providing accommodations. All the fever hospitals are full to overflowing, and huts are being erected in the court-yards and recreation grounds attached to them. On Wednesday, October 12, there were 1,676 fever cases in the hospitals, and on Friday, October 28, 2,448 cases. As I have said, this remote region has not escaped. During the summer in the village of St. Martin Lantorque, containing 500 inhabitants, forty-four children have died from measles and coqueluche (whooping-cough). It is of course very unusual for children to die of measles and also very unusual for them to have whooping-cough in the summer months, and these two circumstances combined show how very severe the epidemics must have been. They have, however, now died down partly, I presume for want of fuel and partly from the salutary effects of the cooler weather.

Another epidemic, however, of a still stranger character is (according to the local newspapers) raging at this moment at Toulon, viz., an epidemic of suicide. How it is to be explained I know not, but it is a fact that during the last three weeks hardly a day has passed without a suicide. The day before yesterday (October 17) a mason named Marcel Dalle attempted to commit suicide in the usual French manner. Having first carefully stopped up every cranny by which air could enter, he heaped up the stove with charcoal and then laid himself down on his bed to await the toxic effects of the carbonic acid. Fortunately he was interrupted in his operations by the entrance of his landlord, who had him conveyed to the hospital where the surgeon succeeded in resuscitating him, though he was to

all appearances defunct. Yesterday (October 18) an individual adopted a still more sensational measure for destroying himself and was, unhappily, only too successful. Having hired a furnished room on a fourth story he deliberately got out of the window and began to perambulate the ledge outside to the great horror of those in the streets. He made signs as if he would dive head-first on to the pavement but apparently his courage failed, as he was seen to sit down, close his eyes, and let himself slowly slip over the edge. The feelings of those in the house and those outside who witnessed, without being able to prevent these proceedings, may be imagined. Needless to say he was picked up a shattered mass and expired in the hospital an hour after. I have mentioned these two instances, but they are only two among many. The probable explanation is the unusually "hard times" and the approach of winter combined.

The autumnal rains here are now over and the weather glorious. The mean temperature during the last month (September 20 to October 20) has been 55.2 Fah.—one fine, bright day succeeds another. The air is free from moisture, is dry, light and rarefied; for this reason it speedily loses its warmth. Directly the sun sets it becomes chilly, hence visitors should be indoors shortly before sunset, and should live in rooms facing south so as to get the sun as long as possible.

It is now the season here for gathering cassie, which is no other than our old friend the cassia of the wise men of the East. It is a round, very prickly shrub, two or three feet high, and bears little yellow tassel-like flowers about the size of a large pea or small marble. It is grown in gardens situated on the sunny slope of a hill, and the flower is used for the extraction of a scent which forms the basis of nearly all perfumes and pomatums. Other flowers now in season and likewise grown in fields for making scent, are the white jasmine, certain kinds of roses and violets.

Though a few swallows may be seen in Cannes all through the winter, the majority leave us about this time

(October 20) for Africa. Numbers may now be seen collected under the eaves and on the ledges of houses and on telegraph wires.

This is the season also for champignons or mushrooms, and other edible fungi. After the autumnal rains numbers of these dainties make their appearance as if by magic. Besides the ordinary umbrella-shaped mushroom, white above and rose-colored on its under surface, there are several other varieties of fungi, not eaten in England, which are here esteemed the greatest delicacies. There is the picoupé which grows from the roots of oak trees, and is eaten with oil and garlic to the accompaniment of a glass of muscatel A greater delicacy still is the oronge, which makes its appearance in pine woods "where the wild thyme grows," first resembling a snow-ball, but after exposure to the sun's rays shedding its white pellicle and appearing as a "ball of gold." It is eaten stuffed with "fowl's liver, breal-crumbs, shalots and olives finely minced," the whole washed down with a glass of old alicante. A third variety is the "courcoule "; it is shaped like a mandarin's bonnet and bears a sort of collar and bracelet on its stalk. It is fried with a little olive oil, pepper, salt and lemon juice.

Apropos of fungi in general, it is a curious fact that the ordinary well-known variety, known in England as the mushroom, is the only one which has ever been successfully cultivated.

It may be useful to physicians to know that the toxic qualities of a fungus can be at once detected in the following manner: Place a silver spoon in warm water containing the suspected cryptogam -if poisonous, the spoon will be at once blackened.

No one can have failed to be struck with the very wide influence exerted by politics, apparently upon matters in no way connected with them. Last spring the greatest German pathologists and diagnosticians of the day declared that the Prince Imperial of Germany was afflicted with a cancerous growth in the larynx and counselled the removal of that organ as a measure which could not indeed save the Prince's life, but which would "postpone the evil day." It

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