THE fourth meeting of the tenth session of the Liverpool Biological Society was held on January 10, at University College, Liverpool. During the evening an interesting report on “Green Oysters, and the connection between Oysters and Disease” was presented by Prof. Herdman, who explained that a year ago he and Prof. Boyce commenced to investigate the conditions under which oysters lived healthily. Among other matters they directed their particular attention to the possibility of the oyster being infected by sewage in sea-water with the typhoid organism, and of so transmitting the disease to the consumer. At the meeting of the British Association at Ipswich, last September, they communicated the results they had obtained up to that point, and then they were appointed (with the addition of Prof. Sherrington and Mr. G. C. Bourne) as a committee to investigate the matter further. At present they were really in the midst of their observations; and the present communication could only be regarded in the nature of an interim report, as their conclusions would not be drawn up for publication until the meeting of the British Association in September next. In the meantime a most alarming and widespread scare, following upon incidents connected with a ball at Stirling, on October I, had arisen, it being assumed that there was some connection between oysters and an outbreak of typhoid. This had considerably affected the important oyster trade of the country, and had probably thrown a great deal of quite undeserved suspicion upon perfectly wholesome oysters. Under these circumstances they had felt it their duty to take an early opportunity of stating their results and impressions as they stood at present. Their work, so far as it had gone, was of a reassuring character, and demanded from the public at the very least a suspension of judgment, whilst it indicated that the adoption of some simple sanitary precautions would, if properly carried into effect, go far to remove suspicion from the oyster. Prof. Herdman then proceeded to describe, with the aid of lantern slides, specimens and microscopic preparations, the different descriptions of oysters which are supplied in North-west Europe, and the methods of treatment they are subjected to prior to being placed on the market. He dealt with the cultivation of the French green oyster, and discussed the cause of the green colour, both in that oyster and in Americans relaid on the Lancashire coast. He pointed out that the most important precaution to take in oyster culture was to choose perfectly healthy grounds for the fattening process, it being necessary, in the first place, to ascertain that the purity from sewage of the water was beyond question. Further it was advisable to submit the oysters for a short time to disgorging basins or tanks, a method which was adopted with success by the French, before sending them to the market. Prof. Boyce then followed with an account of the experiments on the infection of oysters with typhoid, and showed, by means of tables, the rate at which the typhoid bacillus disappeared in sea-water. There was no evidence of increase in numbers of the bacillus when grown in sea-waters, either when incubated or at ordinary temperatures.