LONDON TABLE TALK.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIV, Issue 94, 22 April 1893, Page 9

LONDON TABLE TALK.

(FROM OUlt SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.)

London, March 3

Return or the Influenza,

Despite the predictions of experts, the influenza has again made ibs appearance, and though the authorities state ib is not epidemic yefc, the rapid lengthening from day to day this week of the ' Times' obituary columns looks extremely ominous. Moreover, ib is uncomfortable to reflec fc that the faculty appear to know little more aboub the mysterious complaint now bhan bhoy did a twelvemonbh ago. You hardly ever find two medical man agree aa to the exact treatment, and we are still waiting an- authoritative ultimatum whether ib is infectious or nob. The Royal Engagement. The facb bhat a Court official has authoritatively (these things are always authoritative) assured the Borlin correspondents of the ' Chronicle' that the rumours of Prince George's engagement-bo Princess May are untrue, and give pain to the Royal family, does not in any way affecb the accuracy of whab I stated last week. If the ' dear Tecks' in their anxiety to bring aboub the match, had not rather overshot the mark, the engagement would now be unfait accompli. As things are, the Prince is perfectly free. He may propose twelve months hence, or he may nob. On the whole it would nob surprise me now should the matter fall through. The Queen never liked the connection, and the Duchess of Teck's too patent scheming has alienated even the Princess of Wales and her daughters. La Debacle. ' How are the mighty fallen !' Cholera bacillus raised to high estate in the Kingdom of Terrors by Dr. Koch, .has been contemptuously kicked from its pedestal by the savants of the Austrian Pathological Institute on the result of rather unpleasant but highly interesting experiments. Ib seems that Professor Strieker and his Austrian confreres never entertained much respect for the cholera bacillus discovered and advertised by consumption Koch, and now they declare themselves roady to eat that awe-inspiring microbe in any reasonable quantity, and to testify afterwards thab they feel none the worse for their pathological orgie. Nor do these gentlemen propose to take a leap in tho dark, they have already taken snacks of cholera microbes specially bred for their scientific destiny. Some of these organisms, we are told, were cultivated purely—whatever ! they may signify—whilst others were pampered in gelatine. Towards the end of last year a Dr. Hasterlik made a beginning with half a drop of the supposed infection, and about three weeks later repeated and doubled the dose. Bub in his zeal for knowledge he did nob confine the experiments to his own person. Three othor individuals were invited to keep him company in the experiment, two of them being selected as being in a state of health that promised justice to the efforts of the bacilli. In results they succeeded in disagreeing violently with the contemptuous pathologists, but the inconvenience was only temporary, and no trace has been found of the dise&se which tha bacilli are supposed to generate. Ib is impossible to plead an alibi ; they were undoubtedly planted on what ought to have made a promising nidw of plagues. From Hamburg we learn also thab the germs were proved to be absent in some undoubted cases of cholera, where, according to the latest theory, they were bound to show themselves and to have appeared under circumstances which they would bo equally unable to justify. If once reverenced animalmice aro to treat science in this irresponsible fashion and to upseb iba most confidenb calculations, the only bhing will be to pronounce on them the sentence of banishment from text books. Of course pathologists will nob condemn the whole family of bacilli for the vagaries of a few abnormal specimens (especially in the case of those nurtured in gelatine), but doctors are already engaged in showing thab each other's pet bacilhcs is an imposter with no claim to be a peat producer. These polemics, says a contempory, are at least more inspiriting to the lay mind than the equal zeal which rival practitioners display in exposing one anothe'rs remedies. In an article in the ' New Review ' for March 8, Dr. Ernest Harb deals lengthily with bhe cholera. His final conclusions are thab for bhe prevention of the disease we must brush to bhe purification of the soil and water as the vehicles of propagation, and for remedical measures a combination of delute sulphuric acid with an aromatic stimulant must be the root of the treati menb.