Effects on able to move about than previously, if they have suffered from great weight and heaviness. Labour during this season is very quick. It takes about three-fourths of the ordinary time. The patients generally complain of severe cold and trembling just before and after the commencement of labour pains. The pains then come on, and the uterus seems to act with double energy and force. The pains are principally dragging lumbar pains. After delivery, severe pains are felt all over the lumbar and pelvic regions, and in the hip joints; but they continue only for a short time, and then disappear. This wind has an invigorative effect on the galactophorous glands. A dry, scanty breast now secretes a large and abundant quantity of milk. The young infant at this season of the year suffers much from cold, especially amongst the lower class. The babe is said to cry much more than at any other time, and is much more troublesome in nursing. Glandular swellings are common amongst them, especially those three or four years of age, which generally run on to the formation of matter. The principal glands affected are the parotid, submaxillary, and glandular concatinatæ. Sometimes the swellings are so large that they extend the cervical fascia to such a degree as to impede the healthy action of the large vessels, and interrupt breathing. A most extreme case of the kind came under my notice on the Slave Coast in the month of January 1860. The patient was a girl of five years of age, and during the occurrence of a severe harmattan in the beginning of the month had suffered from the glands of the neck. When I saw her the parotid, submaxillary, thyroid, and all the other glands of the neck had become involved. The cervical fascia was considerably stretched; she suffered from severe pain, and was quite unable to turn her head one way or the other. The breathing was very stertorous and hurried, ranging from 50 to 56. She had a slight cough, and her deglutition was much impeded. The child, which was said to have been strong and stout, was now reduced to a skeleton; the eyes, standing out of their orbits, staring ghastly; cheek sunken, and the bones of the face prominent; the great cervical vessels and air-passages were so compressed that their proper functions were entirely interrupted, and that, with the inability to take food and the dyspepsia, led to ill nourishment of the system and deprivation of the blood. The child was, in fact, dying from inanition. A lancet discharged a large quantity of matter; the pain diminished; the number of respirations fell; the breathing became more natural; a revival was observed in the countenance; and the child, who was at death's door, now looks lively, and enjoys its meals. How far the statement of Dr Lind,* that the harmattan is a "malignant and fatal wind," is true, I leave my readers to form their own opinion. MORTALITY AND REGISTRATION OF THE BLACK TROOPS AND black troops. Dr T. Graham Balfour, F.R.S., Deputy Inspector-General of Mortality of Hospitals, in his able summary of the health of the army all over the world, published in the "Statistical Reports of the Army Medical Department" for 1859 to 1862, gives the following as the rate of sickness and mortality of British troops on the West Coast of Africa : WEST AFRICAN STATIONS. 1. In Sierra Leone the sickness is represented by 740 admissions, and the mortality by 29-53 deaths per 1000 of mean strength. 2. At the Gambia the sickness is represented by 978 admissions, and the mortality by 33·74 deaths per 1000 of mean strength. 3. On the Gold Coast the sickness is represented by 624 admissions, and the mortality by 26-45 deaths per 1000 of mean strength. The Gambia and Sierra Leone seem to be the most sickly; but the average duration of the cases of sickness, and the * Diseases of Hot Climates. mortality compared with the admissions, is greatest on the Gold Coast. The most prevalent miasmatic diseases in Sierra Leone are as follow: Paroxysmal fevers, represented by 98 admissions per 1000 mean strength; rheumatism, by 56 per 1000; dysentery and diarrhea, by 20; eruptive fevers, by 23 per 1000. The most prevalent on the Gambia are :— Paroxysmal fevers, represented by 294 admissions per 1000 of mean strength; dysentery, diarrhea, and cholera, by 58 per 1000; eruptive fevers, by 44 per 1000; rheumatism, by 28 per 1000; ophthalmia, by 13 admissions per 1000 men. The most prevalent on the Gold Coast are :— Dysentery, diarrhea, and cholera, represented by 31 admissions per 1000 mean strength; rheumatism, by 26 per 1000; ophthalmia, by 19 per 1000; paroxysmal fever, by 11 admissions per 1000. Smallpox and measles are sometimes epidemic, and Guinea-worm among parasitic diseases holds a prominent place. Indeed, in 1861, this affection was the cause of onethird of the admissions into hospital; and it is worthy of remark, that in that year not a single case occurred among the troops at Sierra Leone and the Gambia. The two following tables will show the greatest number of annual admissions and mortality in the stations on the West Coast of Africa : MORTALITY OF THE BLACK TROOPS SERVING ON THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA AND IN THE WEST INDIES, TAKEN FROM THE REPORTS OF THE ARMY MEDICAL DEPARTMENT PRESENTED TO PARLIAMENT. * Report of Select Committee on Africa (Western Coast), 1865. TABLE SHOWING THE PROPORTION OF ADMISSIONS INTO HOSPITAL Registration in Western Africa. On the West Coast of Africa the Registrarship of Births, Deaths, and Marriages is not vested in the medical profession, and, consequently, it will be impossible to get accurate returns of the causes of death. How will these Registrars appear if, in the Central Government, a Medical Registrar-General was appointed, and the following instructions, which were sent by the Registrar-General of all England to his two thousand two hundred reporting officers, were sent to them? "If the deaths registered during the quarter have been above or below the average, state whether, in your opinion, the fact is wholly or partially to be accounted for by sanitary arrangements, by increase or decrease of population, the weather, |