THIS subject gains great importance in view of the enormous consumption of this tropical fruit in the United States. In their native countries bananas are seldom eaten before the skin is discolored, and the pulp of so soft a consistence that it can be scooped out with a spoon. Under the artificial conditions in which they are placed in these climes, they undergo somewhat rapid changes, and the times at which they are best suited for consumption may be short and difficult to predict with any degree of precision. Authorities, however, claim that they are habitually eaten here before they have reached their most suitable stage. Before they are thoroughly matured, moreover, they are apt to be insipid in flavor, and to cause dyspepsia and other forms of intestinal disturbance. They should not be eaten before the skin is blackened in places, or when there is any reluctance in the skin to separate from the pulp. Housekeepers know how bananas will change in the course of a single night from a manifestly sound condition to one in which the skin is blackened and the pulp soft and slightly discolored. Now, children infinitely prefer these last bananas to those that are apparently sounder, although their elders may hesitate to gratify their taste in this respect from a fear as to the wholesomeness of such fruit. Attacks of gastric or intestinal disturbance from the use of unsound bananas are far from common, and it may well be that in this instance the natural inclination of the child covers more wisdom than the caution of its elders; in fact, experts say that the banana, like the medlar, can hardly be in too ripe a condition for eating. With the rapid changes the fruit undergoes, it is hardly surprising that cases of friction between the sanitary authorities and the vendors should be of frequent occurrence as regards the fitness of the fruit for sale or consumption. . . . It would seem to us that in many such cases the importers and retail dealers have a possible grievance, and their contention that sanitary inspectors require a more thorough knowledge of the different phases bananas undergo is a valid one. The general public, too, would seem to need convincing that at present they habitually eat their bananas in far too hard and immature a condition.—British Medical Journal.