Epidemic Dropsy or Beri-Beri in Eastern Bengal *This hardly states the point of view of Lt.-Col. Giles quite fairly. Col. Giles found a vast confusion about diseases in Assam in which dropsy and anæmia were prominent symptoms. He showed clearly that these cases were not what is ordinarily known as beri-beri, and he emphasised the discovery of the share taken by the ankylostoma in producing anæmia. What was then thought to be malaria is now believed to be Leishmian-Donovah infection.—Ed., I. M. G.

of Civil Hospitals, Eastern Bengal and .Assam, were briefly to find out if there was any factor of causation common to the affected jails and not equally to the others, and I was to satisfy myself as to the diagnosis of the cases. My experience of beri-beri has been fairly extensive as I 6aw cases numbering, perhaps, five hundred, in the Tung Wah Hospital, Hong-Kong, in ioqo and 1901, through the kindness of a Chinese Doctor, Chung Tung, who had British qualifications. I also experienced a slight outbreak of ban-beri in my Field Hospital fcection in Hong-Kong, having 9 cases amongst about 60 followers. And I saw all the cases admitted to the Medical College Hospital, Calcutta, while Resident Physician in the year 1902 and part of 1903 Realising that to set out on my tour without a goorl knowledge of epidemic dropsy would handicap me, 1 availed myself of casual leave to visit Calcutta in January and see cases of the disease in the Medical College. I then started on a tour in Eastern Bengal and Assam and visited all the jails where cases of beri-beri and epidemic dropsy had been reported, and visited a number of other jails in order to compare the conditions there with the affected jails. The following is a tabular list of cases reported in six jails :?