NEWS IN BRIEF

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1904, 15 June 1892, Page 6

NEWS IN BRIEF

A patient at the Wellington Hospital recently puzzled the doctors, To all appearance he was well during the day, but at night his temperature rose as high as 140deg. Anxious consultations were held, and everything possible was done, but still came this phenomenal rise at night, and the medical men were completely at a losa to account for it, and for the internal pains of which the man complained. Finally (says the « Post ') the man was watched, and it was found that in his desire to remain in the institution he was in the habit of inserting the thermometer in the hot poultices applied to relieve hia " internal pains," and ao produced the results which so startled nurses and doctors. The attendants said nothing to the malingerer, but next day the doctor informed him that he was now convalescent, and he was discharged, still protesting that he was in a state of collapse, and citing his abnormal night temperature as evidence.

A curious case is set down for trial at one of the English assizes. A baker has instituted proceedings against one of his employ es for theffc, the charge being based on the fact of the latter having appropriated to his own use a prime cut or two off the joints the master's customera sent to be cooked in the baker's ovens. The defence is that the man merely followed the usual custom, and that it is the practice of his trade to " take toll " off the joints sent to them for cooking, in addition to charging for cooking. Tha revival of " trains " to ladies' walking dresses has led to outbreaks of the fiercest tirades in the English papers againßt an unwholesome, uncleanly fashion. There is one individual in New Zealand at the present time 103 years of age, another 101, and a third 99. Over 14,000 persona have paesed the three score years and ten. The Wellington Benevolent Trustees have a boarding-out system for the old men, and it was reported to them at the last meeting that the inmates of their boarding-house had struck against pork sausages ! The inmates (says the ' Evening Post ') wanted ham and aggs for breakfast, and this being an expensive luxury at present the boardinghouse keeper kept to his sausages, and the recalcitrant old men threw the next breakf astpottion — seven pounds — over an adiacent cliff. J

A Boston woman on a visit to Rome called at the Vatican, and, being informed that the Pope was ill, offered to give him the Christian science treatment, but the offer was declined. The Pope sticks to the old school.

Mr Foreman, coxswain of the Broadstairs lifeboat, who is retiring after twenty years' heroic service, ha 3 been presented with LIOO. The Edinburgh Ladiea' Debating Society, which -now number eighty-one members, recently discussed a motion " That selfintereat is the mainspring of human action," when only two voted for the affirmative.

Testimony to the value of the gas cure ia cases of diphtheria is given to the Wellington 'Post' by a correspondent, who writes :: — C! The prevalence of this scourge, and the seeming inability of the medical faculty to battle with it, causes me to give an account of the case of a child in Ducedin, which is now alive, after the doctors had given it up. Unfortunately I heard of this cure too late. My only one had succumbed to the same fatal disease after three days of most agonising suspense. The result came to be true to the doctor's predicted verdict, 'No help.' But I am told there is help in the very last stage of the illness, and I give a father's story, who saved the life of his second child, as I got ths report from him. He said : 1 One of my eldest children Iwas down with this illness, and the doctor having given thiß child up, it died. A second one, a girl, took the disease, which also threatened to end fatally. I had beard of the gas cure, and in my frenzy I took my dying child to the Gasworks in South Dnnedin, two miles or more distant. Arrived there I placed myself near one of the retorts, and as loDg as I could stand the fumes the child bad to inhale the gaa. To my joy the fungus dissolved at once, it came up, and the child had no bad after-effects, living to the present day.' I leave the name of the fortunate father and my own at the office of your paper, with the hope that this gas cure may be investigated and perhaps prove the correct remedy for this fatal malady. Gas can be conveyed anywhere in strong bottles."