slippery condition of the walk. The charge uses the language: "Aud this condition was open and apparent to the plaintiff." Among other definitions of the word "apparent" found in Webster's International Dictionary is the following: "Clear or manifest to the understanding, plain, evident, obvious, known." It may be that the use of the word in the charge was misleading, but if it be conceded that the charge had misleading tendencies, it was open to the plaintiff to have asked an explanatory charge in answer thereto. There was no reversible error in giving said charge. We do not deem it necessary to separately treat other assignments of error dealing with the question of evidence. Some of them relate to the extent of the injury suffered by the plaintiff, as to whether her arm is permanently injured, and questions of like character. The jury returned a verdict for the defendant and plaintiff was awarded no damages whatever. We are unable to see where any reversible error could be rested on these questions. Plaintiff testified that after she had fallen a young man seated inside the store came out and helped her up, brushing the meal off her dress, and that she stated to him at the time, "This is so dangerous." This testimony was excluded by the court, and we are clear to the view that the above-quoted remark was not a part of the res gesta and its exclusion did not constitute error. The other questions presented by the assignments of error have been by us carefully considered. They present nothing calling for separate of defendant B, a driver in the employ of the defendant express company negligently backed an express wagon against a pile of chicken coops, the property of B, which he had, negligently and in violation of an ordinance, permitted to remain on the sidewalk, near the curbing; that the wagon knocked down the chicken coops; that the falling coops struck an employee of B named W, who fell against the plaintiff, so that she fell violently to the sidewalk, and was severely injured. The trial court gave judgment for plaintiff against the express company for $550 but dismissed the action as to the defendant B. Both plaintiff and the defendant express company thereupon appealed. In affirming the judgment in favor of the defendant B, the court pointed out that the evidence failed to show any violation of the city ordinance in regard to the position of the chicken coops on the sidewalk near the curbing. On the contrary, the court said, the evidence showed the employee W was in the act of carrying and placing the empty coops from the warehouse upon the sidewalk to be shipped, and was so engaged when the express wagon drove up. It was not a violation of any ordinance, said the court, nor an act of negligence, to pile the empty coops on the outer edge of the sidewalk while the express wagon was coming to take them away. Being further of opinion that the evidence failed to show any negligence on the part of the driver of the express wag treatment, however. After full consideration of the record, we find no reversible error, and the judgment of the lower court is accordingly affirmed. Affirmed. on, the court reversed the judgment against the express company and directed the dismissal of plaintiff's suit. Whittle v. Southern Exp. Co., 142 La. 238, 76 So. 623 (1917). O. L. C. SOUTH COVINGTON & CINCINNATI STREET RY. CO. v. MILLER'S ADM'X. [Court of Appeals of Kentucky, September 26, 1917.] 176 Ky. 701, 197 S. W. 403. 1. Negligence-Proximate cause defined. The proximate cause is that which stands next in causation to the effect, not necessarily in time or space but in causal relation. CASE NOTE. Personal injury as proximate cause of death. I. Pre-existing diseased condition, 825-833. A. In general, 825-827. B. Organic disease, 827. C. Heart, kidney and stomach disease, 827-828. D. Heart disease, 828-829. E. Cancer of stomach, 829-830. H. Gall bladder disease, 831-832. J. Alcoholism, 832-833. K. Recent operation for appendicitis, 833. II. Subsequent injury, 833-838. A. Unnecessary use of anæsthetic for operation, 833-834. B. Lifting weight while first wound healing, 834-835. C. Suicide while convalescent, 835. D. Improper care during convalescence, 835-836. E. Fall from wagon due to dizziness, 836-838. III. Subsequently developing disease, 838-852. A. Typhoid fever, 838-840. B. Pneumonia, 841-843. C. Sarcoma, 843-844. D. Tuberculosis, 844-846. E. Typhoid malarial fever, 846848. F. Lockjaw, 848. G. Epilepsy, 848-849. H. Edema of lungs, 849. I. Cerebral meningitis, 849-851. NOTE-This annotation supplements one of like title in 8 N. C. C. A. 969980, where the earlier cases on this topic are collected. I. Pre-existing diseased condition. The plaintiff's decedent, a section hand, left the crew with which he was working and went along the track for the purpose of inspecting the fence which had been reported as out of order. He had gone but short distance when a train approached and he went off of the track to a distance of about twelve feet to wait for it to pass. While standing in this place, he was hit in the side and back by a lump of coal weighing about ten or twelve pounds, which fell from the tender of the passing locomotive. The injury thus received, it was claimed, resulted in his death. The court charged that if the defendant failed to use due care in the loading of the coal or in maintaining its track at that place, or in providing an insufficient number of men to keep the track in question repaired, and the death of the plaintiff's decedent resulted from the failure to exercise such proper care, the defendant was liable. From a judgment for the plaintiff the defendant 2. Negligence-Injury to back-Proximate cause of death-Question for jury. It was a question for the jury whether the death of a person, who was struck appealed. The court reversed judgment and remanded the case, holding that while the injury received might be considered a proximate result of the failure to properly load the coal, yet such could not be said with respect to any possible failure to provide sufficient section men to repair the track in that particular locality. "Such dereliction was, it must be said in this case, clearly shown to be merely a remote incident, and not the proximate cause of the present injury." In view of another trial, the court suggested that the plaintiff was entitled to have the jury say whether the efficient cause of the death was the injury in suit, or if the decedent after the injury became affected with some disease, whether such disease was the direct and proximate cause of the injury received by being struck with the lump of coal. The court also pointed out that a charge asked by defendant was properly refused which would have relieved it from liability if the death was due in some manner to the effects of a disease to which the decedent had previously been subject, since the defendant was liable if the injury aggravated a pre-existing tendency to disease in the injured person. Missouri, K. & T. Ry. Co. of Texas v. Smith, 63 Tex. Civ. App. 510, 133 S. W. 482 (1911). The only questions involved in an appeal from a judgment for defendant in an action to recover damages for the death of plaintiff's decedent alleged to have resulted from injuries inflicted by the running of the cars of the defendant railroad, were whether the decedent died from the injuries inflicted by the railroad or from some other cause, or whether such injuries hastened his death or contributed directly to it. Plaintiff contended that the trial court erred in giving the fol lowing instruction: "The court instructs the jury that the burden is on the plaintiff to prove by a preponderance of the evidence, to your satisfaction that J. B. Hamel's death was caused by the injuries alleged to have been sustained by him at the time and place named in the declaration, and if from all of the evidence in this case you are unable to say what caused his death then you must find for the defendant, and this is true even though you may believe from the evidence that the defendant is liable for such injury." In reversing the judgment the court said: "As to the third ground of error, which was the granting of instruction No. 5 to the appellee, and the refusal of the court to grant any instruction to the appellant stating the true rule, we think was erInstruction No. 5 is erroneous because it instructs the jury, in effect, that no recovery by the plaintiff could be had unless the injury inflicted by the railroad was the sole cause of the death, and at the same time denying to the plaintiff the benefit of the true rule, as announced by instructions requested by plaintiff, that the plaintiff should recover if the injuries inflicted aggravated the condition of the deceased and hastened his death, or contributed directly to his death. We think the refusal of the lower court to grant the instructions requested by plaintiff announcing this rule, and the granting to defendant the instruction No. 5, was substantial error." Hamel v. Southern R. Co. in Mississippi, 113 Miss. 344, 74 So. 276 (1917). ror. In an action to recover damages for the conscious suffering and the death of the plaintiff's decedent, alleged to have been due to the negligence of the in the back by the handle of a truck he was drawing, due to the truck being struck by a street car, was the result of such accident where decedent continued to work after the accident and one year later, while stooping over to pick up a casting his back gave way and he died in the hospital six months later, where there was evidence that after the first accident decedent was given light work and was compelled to work in a stooping position and the physician who treated him said that decedent's condition gradually grew worse and defendant's motorman, it was charged that the proximate cause of the injuries received by the decedent upon the occasion in suit, was the negligent act of the motorman in sounding a whistle while approaching and while opposite the team which decedent was driving upon a highway running parallel to the defendant street car company's track at a time when, in the exercise of ordinary care, the motorman should have known that the horses were frightened and that there was great danger of an accident because of their frightened condition. At the close of the evidence, the defendant moved for a directed verdict in its favor as to that count of the declaration stating the claim for damages for the decedent's death, upon the ground, among others, that the evidence did not warrant a finding that the accident in question was the cause of the death. In overruling exceptions to a verdict for the plaintiff, the court said, as to the above contention, that since there was evidence that the immediate cause of the death was an injury to the kidneys caused by the accident, and that the accident hastened the death of the decedent from one to three years, this was enough legally to warrant the jury in finding that the accident was the proximate cause of the death. Little v. Massachusetts Northeastern St. R. Co., 229 Mass. 244, 118 N. E. 245 (1918). B. Organic disease. In affirming a judgment for the plaintiff for $500 for the death of his decedent, which occurred while swimming in the defendant's natatorium, the court held that the evidence was sufficient to show that death was not due to drowning, but to organic disease, notwithstanding the verdict of the coroner's jury which recited that death was caused by drowning, in view of the uncontradicted medical evidence to the effect that a postmortem showed no water in the lungs, chest or bronchial tubes or stomach and disclosed a large thymus gland and greatly enlarged spleen, mesentery glands, and intestinal and lymphatic structures, and that death while swimming was common to persons in such physical condition, and that death in this case was due to the organic disease found. Behrns v. Roth, 204 Ill. App. 328 (1917). C. Heart, kidney and stomach disease. In an action to recover damages for the alleged negligently caused death of the plaintiff's decedent, plaintiff alleged and offered evidence tending to show that defendant's street car, while at a standstill and taking on passengers, suddenly and without warning started while the decedent was in the act of boarding it, with one foot on the running board, thereby causing him to be thrown to the ground and so inflicting the injuries from which it was charged he shortly thereafter died. The evidence showed that the decedent at the time of the accident in suit was 71 years old. An autopsy disclosed that at the time of his death certain of his internal organs were |