TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8375, 8 March 1907, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

Dr. McDonald, of Adelaide, who recently received from Japan a supply of tuberculo-toxoidin, which is said to be a cure for consumption, is (says the Adelaide Advertiser) making experiments with it. Several persons, who have been pronounced by medical practitioners to be suffering from consumption, called on Dr. McDonald, and asked to be given a course of treatment. The doctor selected a bad case, so as to thoroughly test the remedy, and is treating it. In a week the patient's cough, which was a source of trouble at night, had almost ceased. The patient has gained in weight, and has a good appetite. There has not been the slightest reaction, and up to a few day 3 ago the results have been gratifying. The experiment is being watched with keen interest.

Professor Small, of Chicago University, says that living expenses are higher now than for any period within twenty-six years. The prices of food and clothing advanced 20 per cent, in the United States during 1906, and no fewer than 36 items of food cost 24. per cent. more. With such telling effect have these high prices for the necessities of life fallen upon the working classes of this vast country that, according to the New York World, the big industrial concerns have decided to put £8,240,000 more into the workers' pockets. That is, they, have recognised the great increase in the cost of living by meeting it with an increase of pay to their employees. The cry from nearly every part of the States is that present incomes are not sufficient to meet the reasonable demands of living. In Chicago the railroad systems lead in the list of labour employers, and they have all agreed to make a general increase in wages of 10 per cent, to all workers earning less than £4O a month.

An important minor problem of naval.warfare is gun-deafness. Dr. Arthur Cheatle, an English aural specialist, states that most of the officers passing through the King Edward Hospital, and nearly every gun crew in the Navy, suiter from the effects of the heavy gun-fire. In fact, during a severe naval action the firing of the guns and the bursting of the enemy's shells are liable to produce not only deafness, but also a dazed mental condition, which has the effect of physical disablement. For instance, when the Russian crew was taken off the Variag by the Japanese, after the vessel had been subjected to a terrible bombardment, the crew were deaf, dazed, and helpless. The Japanese found that the cotton wool plugs served out to every man in the fleet before going into action, were ineffective, and at the present time navies are on the lookout for something which will save the ear from the shock of heavy firing, and yet will not prevent a man from hearingorders. Dr. Cheatle thinks he has found an efficient ear plug in a plastic mixture of wool and modelling clay, but its efficacy has yet to be proved.

The corridors of the Australian Government agencies in London have resounded to the organised march of the woman suffragists (says a London correspondent), who appear to work on the principle that help should .never be left unsought in offical quarters merely because there are twenty chances to one that it will be refused. The Agents-General cannot, of course, take any part in a political agitation. The leaders must have known this beforehand, but they showed a characteristically feminine belief in the possibilities of wire-pulling, and therefore did not hesitate to ask the reluctant Agents-General that they would "urge the representative, or representatives, of Australia to move a woman suffrage resolution at the Colonial Conference." One of the Agents-General, who incautiously ventured, when a deputation from the Women's Social and Political Union waited on him, to express a doubt as to the wisdom of giving votes to women in England, as well as to question the propriety of his being asked to meddle in so controversial a matter, was talked at for nearly two hours by Miss Christabel Pankhurst, LL.B.