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In the fifty-second issue of the Medical Reports of the Imperial Maritime Customs, just published, E. W. VON TUNZELMANN, of Chefoo, describes a non-malarial remittent fever, occurring among Europeans, which in many respects nearly resembles Enteric Fever, and which differs from Malarial remittent fever in the absence of initial chills or rigors, and of rigors accompanying the small daily exacerbations of temperature, and in the absence of an enlarged spleen, and which is charac- terized by the presence in the blood of two hitherto undescribed parasites, one of which he terms a a Medusa sanguinis hominis, owing to its striking resemblance in form and movements to the medusae, while the other is an irregular-shaped organism, invested by a clear structureless double-contoured membrane having on the ventral aspect an orifice surrounded by a very mobile ridge or lip, and which is to be found both free, and contained within the red blood corpuscles. The presence of the medusae in the blood is, he states, invariably associated with considerable pyrexia of a remittent type, and they have hitherto been found by him to be always accompanied by the other form of parasite, but this latter may be found alone in the blood, even in enormous numbers, without producing any clinical symptoms. Whether further investigations will confirm this Report or not, it is impossible to say, but it is at least evident that a type of Fever may exist in this climate which, whether Malarial or not in origin, closely resembles in clinical features, Enteric Fever, and appears in fact to have been hitherto diagnosed as such, rather by the process of exclusion than from full conviction of its genuine enteric character. Some of these doubtful cases, reported last year as Enteric Fever, were characterized by an almost entire absence of Diarrhea, the opposite condition being in fact more generally present, an absence of any roseolous eruption, and of gurgling in the iliac fossae, while the patients have not infrequently complained of severe neuralgic headaches, without delirium, or mental obscurity, and it is such cases as these that may eventually prove to be a type of remittent fever, possibly non-malarial, rather than a modified Enteric Fever.

It is interesting to note the small number of cases of Enteric Fever which occurred among the Chinese during the year, an experience which accords with the apparent immunity of the native population of India from this cause, while the circumstances connected with these cases appear to suggest that the same explanation of this apparent immunity may apply to both races, namely, that they are so fully exposed to the infection throughout the whole period of their existence that they almost always contract the disease in infancy or early childhood, when if they recover, the disease will have been practically unnoticed, while if they succumb the death will be attributed to Diarrhoea, Convulsions, or some other symptom. Should they then happen to contract a second attack in adult life, it will be so modified by the previous one as to be again scarcely recognizable or at least to be insufficient to drive the patient to a Hospital under European control.

Of the seven cases which occurred among the Chinese in this Colony last year, one only was an adult, and he had contracted the disease in Saigon from which port he arrived by steamer, while the other six were children ranging from 6 to 17 years of age, resident in a Home under Euro- pean management. These children obviously contracted the infection from a German pastor who was brought down to the Home from the Tung Kun province of China, in consequence of illness, and died of Enteric Fever a very few days after arrival; the children had been carefully protected from any in- fection of this nature while in the Home, which means practically from infancy, as the Home is a Found- ling one, until the arrival of this European case, when they shewed that they were equally as liable to contract the disease as any European children would have been, and it appears to me therefore that we have, in the history of these cases, a very suggestive corroboration of the theory that the Asiatic is not naturally immune to Enteric Fever but that he is almost invariably protected by an attack in infancy.

Not a few of the cases of Enteric Fever which occur in the Colony are attributable to the infection of raw vegetables in salads, grown in native gardens, for the luxuriant and rapid growth of such vegetables is, in accordance with the usual Chinese custom, fostered by copious waterings with sewage, prepared by mixing night-soil with diluted urine in such a manner that the solid matter is uniformly distributed throughout the liquid in finely divided particles. This naturally constitutes a most admirable fertilizer, but unfortunately for the consumers of the products of this form of market gardening which is practically universal throughout China the germs of such diseases as Cholera and Enteric Fever are very liable to be transmitted thereby, and it is certainly wiser for Europeans in this Colony to abstain from raw vegetables unless grown under their own personal supervision.

I also had reason, in certain of the cases reported last year, to suspect that the infection had been conveyed by oysters, and this can hardly be wondered at when I state that it is no uncommon occurrence for baskets of oysters, imported into the Colony by Chinese compradores, to be kept alive and it may be perhaps fattened, by being suspended over the Praya wall in the immediate vicinity of the various sewer outlets, until some customer may send an order for the supply of these delicacies.

The sewerage system of the city of Victoria has, during the past year, come in for more than its usual share of opprobrium in connection with cases of this disease, and the discovery of cer- tain old sewers, the outlets to which had been blocked by the Praya Reclamation works, while they were yet receiving a small and probably intermittent flow of sewage from some old private drains