which give rise to the train of symptoms called hay fever? Dropping
all hypothetical reasoning, I think some outside vegetable germ is
causing the disease in those predisposed, and peroxide of hydrogen
acts on them as it does on the pus corpuscles, _i.e._, drives them out
when and wherever it finds them. I hope the profession will give this
new measure a thorough trial and report their results.--_Therapeutic
Gazette._

* * * * *




THE SOURCE OF CHINESE GINGER.


In the Kew _Bulletin_ for January an interesting account is given of
the identification of the plant yielding the rhizome employed to make
the well-known Chinese preserved ginger. As long ago as 1878 Dr. E.
Percival Wright, of Trinity College, Dublin, called the attention of
Mr. Thiselton Dyer to the fact that the preserved ginger has very much
larger rhizomes than _Zingiber officinale_, and that it was quite
improbable that it was the product of that plant. The difficulty in
identifying the plant arose from the fact that, like many others
cultivated for the root or tuber, it rarely flowers. The first
flowering plant was sent to Kew from Jamaica by Mr. Harris, the
superintendent of the Hope Garden there. During the past year the
plant has flowered both at Dominica in the West Indies and in the
Botanic Garden at Hong-Kong. Mr. C. Ford, the director of the Botanic
Garden at Hong-Kong, has identified the plant as _Alpinia Galanga_,