The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1859-09-06 00:00:00

HEALTH AND DISEASE

At the Lambeth Pollee Office last week, William
Chance Allen, one of the Bennett and Wattsrs quack
doctor gang. was placed at the bar before Mr. Elliott,
for tinal examination. on the charge of being concerned
with IVatters and Edwards in defrauding Mr. B. I'.
Jones and others, by repmscuting themselves as quell-
k-d medical practitioners, and undertaking to cure
deafness and all other diseases. The prisoner's com-
panions in guilt were tried at the Old Bailey on the 4th
of July last for the offence, found guilty, and sentence.'
lrt months' hard labour. The primoner at the tune
managed to keep out of the way, but having been
brought here on another charge he was rrcogiaixe.l nx
the person against whom the grand jury bad returned a
true bill of indictment, as well as against his associates,
Watters and Edwards.

Inspector Young produced a certified copy of the in
dietment. Mr. Junes Wild sworn b identify the prisoner,
and did so.

Mr. Smith, the resident surgeon at the National Insti-
tution for the Cute oi the I.: tr, .a.•• , and who hod been
a witnes* oh the fora. r pr •••,&0,1, m 1411,4,11, the
said he 11...1 IF, I. I 1.1.• ato
ask his Worship whether lie, Mr. .1 •s, should be
bound over and polled to prosecute the prisoner.
The reason Mr. JOil 1 wssansioas on the subject was
this, that being a prosecutor in the former case he vas
put to an expense of upwardit of DA which epehiie
had nearly ruined hiiiielf awl his family, rod if bound
over in the present case lie must decline, as he could not
stunt it. -

Mr. Elliott observed that Mr J1.11^,1 t be bound
over in the tumid way to attendat the 11,1 Balky awl give
evidence ir. support of the bill of indictment, but not to
employ counsel or go to Any CIIWIINe.
Mr. Jones complained of the great harddlip of being
compelled to prosecute on the former OCCWion, and of
the injury to himself and his family being left to pay IA
large a sum for the prosecution.
A solicitor for the prisoner, in applying that his client
might be admitted to bail, said he should be able to show,
on the trial, that the two permits who had been convicted
were the principals, and the prisoner the subordinate in
the concern—in fact, merely the paid servant of the
other two whose names had been mentioned. .

Mr. Elliott agreed to accept bail, two sureties in £2OO
each, with 24 houni notice, so that inquiries should be
wade as to their solvency mot competency.

Sot!' AND WATER.—The human frame is so con-
structed that certain topical affections or diseases of parts
are fatal. 1303,899 deaths were from "local" diseases
02,103 from cerebral, 14,784 from cardiac, ex., 118,320
from pulmonary, 2'3,532 !mu stelae or gastric, and 3,072
from diseases of the generative organs). Sephria (Wight's
disease) is killing double the number of patients as com-
pared with the rate of seven years ago. Diseases of the
skin and the integumentary system are less conmun
now than in the " dark" or dirty arm, when England
was covered with lazarhotisca for filthy lepers. Soap
and water, however, are still strangers, or anything but
familiar friends, to "the people" at large : the readt
being, not only local affections of the skin, but the in-
duction of some forms of ayesotie disease, from the re-
absorption of its very complex and various excretions.
These, of course, act as direct poisons to Me circulating
mum, like the analogous saline iugiedients of the renal
excretions, when the kidneys fail (as occasionally) to per-
form their eliminaut functions. Dr. Farr gives a broad
hint that washing the face and hannle "even more than
once a day" is nut quite enough ; the skin is Co-extol-
sive with an immense superficial area, and the use of the
shower-bath, with warm, tepid, or cold water, is deli-
cately but imintedly suggested. Dr. Erasmus Wit-on,
however, has already said more than enough on this
head, so that if people refuse to " wash and be clean"
it is not for want of gratuitous medical advice.—Dr.
Purr.
MIAS MARTINEAU ON INTANT MORTALITY.—The
fact is proved that in England 100,000 persons die need-
lessly every year, and of this number 40,011.1 are &if-

1
dren under five years of age, flf all the infants born in
England above 411 I.er not, die before they are five
, ye: rs old. set, a lit creature is so tenacious el life as
I A 1... by ? Those who know the creature best say they
I net, r despair of the infant's' life while it breathes, and
~,,,t of ISA have witnessed some recoveries which are
e,.114:.1 miraculous. Tiler.) is also no creature no easily
in to geahle as an infant, so easily kept healthy and
Is .1.1. i nicrely by not interfering with the natural
c or., of thingi, how, then, Can aid{ prodigious
of i a si,..:sit kil:stiz go 4.11 in i
• cuuutry where nfanticide
i 4 not all instant'. n ? It is precisely because the
li,itarol course of things is interfered with that infants
:me ii, they do. N..ture prot ides their first food; and,
if they 4141 not got it, whose fault is it? The great
majority of then must be naturally able to nuns
their own infants. Poor women du it as • matter of 1
emirse ; and, if gentlewomen did it as simply and natur- i
ally, that • change would largely modify the average ,
of deaths. ttcntlewouien may nut be aware of this '
because the doctor is complaisant in bringing & wet-
horse, and the indolent mother is unaware that her own 1
infant probably sultens, though it does not die, from
hi ing put to the wrong brume, while it never enters her
head that the intree's baby probably dies. It, of the 40 ,
per cent. of English infants who die yearly we could ;
know how ninny are the children of wet-nurses, the 1
fact might startle the fine ladies who suborn the j
mothers, and might bring no small amount of reproach ,
on the cosuplaiAant doctors. When the kind of food is
changed nature in still far from being deferred to as the
ought.