1725 He was a man of very high character, of marked in 58 cases to healthy children, the result being uprightness, and of exemplary professional scrupu- that only a slight eruption of pustules appeared in lousness. the neighbourhood of the place of inoculation Dec. 9th. He was of _________________ without any general symptoms. opinion that the inoculated children had become immune BERLIN. by the inoculation. Photographs of the children the the read Meeting of University Professors. were shown to society, where paper by the distinguished guest was very much applauded. A MEETING of teachers in all the faculties of the German universities was lately held in Strassburg, Combination of Clerical and Medical Functions. of discussion the the principal subject being In a letter in THE LANCET of April 15th last the doctor’s Professor granting of degree. Amira, I reported the case of a medical man who became a in his stated that a existed of Munich, report rivalry clergyman and obtained a benefice, but nevertheless between the individual universities as to granting continued to practise medicine for the benefit of the number of The was the largest degrees. question poor of his parish. Another instance of this un-- greatly complicated by the fact that the professors usual combination of clerical and medical func- had a financial interest in the granting of degrees- tions has recently been reported by the daily because receive the fees the candidates. they paid by newspapers, the difference being that a clergy- There were variations in the fees great required man, while holding his clerical office, had completed! individual in the by the universities, varying a medical curriculum. The case happened in medical for from 300 to 770 marks faculty, instance, Saalfeld, in the neighbourhood of Jena, which is a (from ;E15 to C33 10s.). The meeting adopted University town, and acquired publicity from the a resolution to the effect that the financial fact that the clergyman, having passed the State- interest of the in the of professors granting examination, asked the vestry for one year’s leave must be and that a commis- degrees abolished, of absence for the purpose of hospital attendance sion should formulate for this proposals purpose during his practical year according to the regula- and submit them to the next meeting. Another tions. The vestry has granted the request. subject of discussion concerned the proposed Dec. 8th. foundation of new universities in several cities, as, for instance, in Frankfort, where the necessary ITALY. funds are already collected ; in Dresden, where the matter is still under discussion; and in Hamburg, Medical Representation in the Senate and the New where the plan has meanwhile been dropped. The Chamber. proposed new universities, unlike the existing ones, OF the 29 newly nominated Senators three are are due to the initiative of the municipalities. They members of the medical profession-Professor will not include the four classical faculties of the Girolamo Gatti, director of the Surgical Clinic of old universities, but only some of them, the the Children’s Hospital in Florence and a well- theological faculty being absent, and in some known writer on economic and agricultural sub- the medical faculty also. Professor Beer, of jects ; Professor Ettore Marchiafava, consulting Leipzig, and Professor Kaufmann, of Breslau, physician to His Holiness Pope Pius X. and director spoke against the proposed new universities. of the Institute of Pathological Anatomy in Rome ; They said that it has been argued that the and Professor Carlo Forlanini, professor of clinical number of students in some of the existing medicine in the University of Pavia, the inventor of universities, especially those in Berlin, Munich, and the method of treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis. Leipzig, was much too great. The students, how- by the induction of pneumothorax. Thenew Chamber ever, could not be induced to leave these uni- comprises 36 medical men, including Professor versities for the new ones, and the result would Baccelli, Professor Santoliquido, Professor Casciana, be that still more young men would enter the and Professor Queirolo. Politically this medical academical professions owing to the facilities group resolves itself into 16 Liberals, 10 Radicals,7 offered to them by the newly founded universities, Socialists, 2 Democrats, and 1 Republican. There although academical careers were overcrowded by were 92 medical candidates, of whom 45 were about 40 per cent. The opinions of the last Liberals, 15 Radicals, and 22 Socialists. The last speakers were controverted by several of the Chamber also contained 36 members of the medical audience, especially by Professor Ziegler, of profession. Marburg, who declared that the competition of The Eugenic Movement. the proposed new universities would be a stimulus The Roman Society of Anthropology has recently for the older ones to reform their programmes. taken the initiative in founding an Italian com- Prophylactic Inoculation for Varicella. mittee of distinguished scientists for the purpose of At a meeting of the Berlin Medical Society a eugenic studies. The programme of the committee foreign guest, Professor Medin, of Stockholm, read a includes the study of the factors producing the paper on prophylactic inoculation against varicella. decadence or progress of races, research on normal He said that attacks of varicella occurring in and pathological heredity, the importance of the hospitals were not infrequently attended with severe condition of the organism at the time of the act of symptoms on account of the presence of complica- reproduction, and the influence of environment. tions, especially nephritis. Attempts to convey the An Institute of Forensic Medicine. virus to healthy persons for the purpose of pro- ducing a milder form of the disease have not been There has just been opened in Milan an Institute successful until Professor Medin took up the in- of Legal Medicine. It consists of rooms for electro,- vestigation. During last August an epidemic of diagnostic investigations, for X ray examinations, varicella broke out in the Stockholm Children’s for anthropometric methods, and for photography ; Hospital, where about 50 children, for the most chemical, microscopical, and bacteriological labora- part in the first year of their age, were attacked. tories ; and a good library. Its object is the prac- Professor Medin succeeded in conveying the virus tice of the finer methods of medico-legal research,..