THE The Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'OLOCK Resurrexi. FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 1877.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2626, 8 June 1877, Page 2

THE The Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'OLOCK Resurrexi. FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 1877.

Dn Martin H. Payne has lately displayed an "itch for scribbling," his latest efforfc being a letter from him as Acting Medical Officer to the Borough Council, or the Local Board of Health. If the Dr had confined himself to his subject without dragging in the livening Star we might have allowed this latest phase of his harmless vagaries to pass without mention ; but when he refers to something that has appeared in these columns, characterising the same as "ill-advised remarks/ without .adducing a vestige of evidence to prove his assertion, we are constrained to let the writer know that his eccentricities may not always be dealt with, so leniently as they hav,e been on several occasions lately by the Hospital Committee. First, then, as to our ill-advised remarks. We some time ago proved to the satisfaction of most people that several cases of enteric or typhoid fever had occurred, and that these cases had not been reported as they should have been under The Health .Act, typhoid being included in the gazetted list of infectious diseases by order of the Governor in Council. Dr Payne at that time wrote to the Local Board of Health and said no case of infectious disease had occurred. Dr Payne has; returned to the attack, and he now makes a positive assertion that enteric (or typhoid) fever is not contagious, scarcely infectious. To which we reply that the words are synonymous in meaning according to some good authorities, and te must .explain himself more clearly before he will be understood. • As to whether the disease be infectious, wo have not room for long extracts, but if Dr Payne has such a high opinion of his own abilities as to repeat this assertion we shall refer him to Drs Jenner and Budd, and, we think, Professor Wilkins, who all agree that the disease is contagious or infectious, though " infinitely less so than typhus." We would have Dr Payne remember that in. writing on any subject it would be well to be a little less positive when making assertions, and to avoid that flippancy of treatment to which he seems accustomed in dealing with opinions which do not accord with hi s own.