447

the uncommonly large amount of sunshine which is one ofthe outstanding features of the climate of Algeciras and itsneighbourhood. Taking the number of hours of sunshineper annum it averages 3000, or fully 1000 more than can bepractically had at the very best English health resorts. Allthis is very important to visitors who have to leave theirown countries to escape the rigours of the winter and whoseek after warmth and sunshine. The best months forinvalids are from October to June. The mean winter

temperature is 55° F. in the shade. The air is dry andbracing and there are no sudden changes of temperature.The English Hotel Reina Cristina, with its 22 acres of

beautiful grounds outside the town, is an ideal winter placefor delicate people and invalids able to move about. Thereare also the Hotel Anglo Hispano and smaller Spanish hotelsand a few furnished houses and flats to be had for theseason, but there is a lack of good accommodation for

people of moderate meanp. All kinds of outdoor sports andamusements can be obtained in the neighbourhood, but

except at Gibraltar one has to be satisfied with a quietcountry life free from excitement.From my experience of Algeciras since 1904 I am con-

vinced that in many respects its climate is unequalled inEurope. I have noted marked improvement in cases ofneuritis, insomnia, and other nerve troubles. Also gouty,cardiac, bronchial, and kidney cases as a rule are greatlybenefited by residence in Algeciras. It is excellent also

simply for a rest cure. Algeciras is not only a health resortbut it is a convenient centre for visiting the most importantand interesting places in Andalusia and Morocco, such asRonda, Granada, Seville, and Cordoba on the one hand, andTangier and Ceuta on the other. A splendid service of

passenger steamers ply between it and Gibraltar daily (sixmiles). Gibraltar as a sea port if nothing more is one of themost convenient in Europe for visitors, as the liners of theP. and 0., Orient, Norddeutscher Lloyd, White Star,Dominion, Cunard, and other great shipping companiescall weekly, both on their outward and inward cruises, so Ithat passengers can get to or from England and America onthe one hand, and from and to Algiers, Marseilles, Genoa,Naples, and Egypt on the other, with the greatest ease andcomfort. Visitors can either find their way to Algecirasoverland by the express trains or by the P. and O. and othersteamers in about four days from London and three daysfrom Southampton.Algeciras.

MEDICINE AND THE LAW.

Kissing the Book.IN a recent appeal to the Divisional Court against a

judgment delivered in the Brompton county court a new andcurious point was raised with regard to the taking of theoath in the usual form by kissing a Testament. For thisreason we refer again to a topic which has been so muchdiscussed already in our columns and elsewhere. A medicalman called as a witness had refused on sanitary grounds tokiss the Testament provided and had also objected to takingthe oath in the Scottish form on the ground that he was amember of the Church of England. He had, however, pro-duced a Testament on which he was willing to be sworn butthe county-court judge had refused to allow him to availhimself of it, saying that he would not permit the oath to betaken upon any book except the one in ordinary use in thecourt. As a result the witness was not sworn and hisevidence was lost to the party on whose behalf he had beencalled. Argument took place on the question whether thejudge had decided wrongly in this matter and it was urgedon behalf of the appellant that there was no suggestion thatthe Testament produced was not a perfect copy. This wasin reply to a suggestion by Mr. Justice Phillimore that therewere persons who would consider an oath less binding if itwas taken upon a Testament not complete in every respector in some other irregular manner. It was further arguedby counsel that all that was necessary was that the judgeshould be satisfied that the Testament was one regarded bythe witness as imparting a binding nature to his oath andthat there was no legal obligation to use a volume providedby the court for the purpose and no other. Mr. JusticePhillimore is reported as having said that there could not be anew trial "because of a silly wrangle on the part of thedoctor." It was his view that the question involved a matter

of the discipline of the court, although the county courtjudge might have been wiser to admit the evidence, and theappeal was eventually dismissed. The objection raised topthe Scottish form, which is to be administered withoutquestion to any who may prefer it, is not very easy to follow,but at the same time it seems highly unreasonable that a,witness in the position of a medical practitioner who choosesto provide his own Testament should not be allowed to besworn upon it. To suggest that he would be likely to-commit perjury, solacing his conscience with the knowledgethat the volume was defective and so was not a Testament,is little short of absurd.

Is a Master Liable for Medical A ttendance on Servants ?

The question of the liability of a master for medicalattendance on his servants is one of considerable importanceto the medical profession. A master is not bound to providemedical assistance for his servant but the obligation (if any)must arise from contract ; nor will such a contract be

implied simply because the servant is living under themaster’s roof, nor because the illness of the servant hasarisen from an accident met with in the master’s service.Thus where a servant who had been hired at the yearlywages of .63 10s. and victuals had his arm broken while

driving his master’s team, and was carried to his mother’shouse and attended by his master’s surgeon, who was acci-dentally passing such mother’s house at the time and wascalled in, it was held in Wennall v. Adney (3 B. & P. 247)that the surgeon could recover nothing from the master onan implied promise to pay for the attendance. Where suchaccidents take place the parish officers are bound to assistand the law will so far raise an implied contract againstthem as to enable any person who affords that immediate-assistance which the necessity of the case usually requiresto recover against them the amount of money expended. Soin all cases where a servant falls ill and is unable to pay fornecessary medical assistance the parish is bound to supplysuch assistance, although the servant may not have pre-viously to his illness received or stood in need of parishrelief. In Newly v. Wiltshire (2 Esp. 739) the defendant, afarmer, sent his wagon to Cambridge, and in returning aboy who had been sent with it fell from the shafts and brokehis leg. The boy could not be removed out of the parishwhere the accident happened on account of the dangerwhich it might occasion. The plaintiff was overseer of theparish where the accident happened and took the chargeof getting the boy cured upon himself. It was neces-

sary to amputate the leg and the overseer expendedin and about the cure £32. Afterwards the boy served theremainder of the year with his master and the action wasbrought to recover from the defendant the expenses of theboy’s cure. Lord Mansfield, Chief Justice, said: " I donot applaud the humanity of the master in this case ; hedoes not inquire after his servant for six weeks after theaccident; and when he does he passes on the other side.I think, in general, a master ought to maintain his servantsand take care of them in sickness ; but the question now is,What is the law ? There is, in point of law, no actionagainst the master to compel him to repay the parish for thecure of his servant; no authority whatsoever has been cited ; and it seems to me that it cannot be. The parish is boundto take care of accidents." And Mr. Justice Heath, inWennall v. Adney, said : 11 I am perfectly sure it is morefor the advantage of servants that the legal claim for suchassistances should be against the parish officers rather thanagainst their masters, for the situation of many masterswho are obliged to keep servants is not such as to enablethem to afford sufficient assistance in cases of serious illness."Where, however, a father left his children under the care ofservants, in a house at some distance from his own, and oneof such servants was attacked by illness, which was causedby suckling one of the children, and called in a medicalman who was not known to her master to attend her, andwhere the master’s wife knew of such attendance and ex-pressed no disapprobation, and, after this, the master senthis own surgeon to see such servant, it was held in Cooperv. Phillips (4 C. & P. 584) that the surgeon who had beenoriginally called in by the servant could recover the amountof his bill from the master. A master is, however, bound toprovide an apprentice with proper medicines and medicalattendance (R. v. Smith, 8 C. & P. 153). It is not inci-dent to the employment of a guard or the superintendentof a station of a railway to enter into a contract witha surgeon to attend a passenger injured by an accident

448

on such railway, and the railway company are not thereforeliable to the surgeon for services rendered to such passengerunder a contract so entered into (Cox v. The Midland RailwayCo., 18 L J. Ex., 65). Nor does the new Workmen’s Compen-sation Act make the master liable for medical attendance ona servant in case of accident. Of course, some masters insure

their servants in such a way as to cover medical expensesup to £5 but the law does not impose any obligation on themto do so. Suppose a caretaker of a country house falls down-stairs in the absence of the family and is laid up for someweeks with concussion of the brain. A medical man is calledin by one of the servants to attend her. Is the master liable ? The answer is "No." There is no doubt that as time goes onthe provisions of the Workmen’s Compensation Act will beextended to cover medical expenses. If. the principle ofcompensation for injuries is once admitted it seems absurd tolimit the compensation to particular employments, as was thecase before 1906, and if compensation has now to be paid toall servants for accidents it seems anomalous not to make themaster liable for medical expenses. In the above casesupposed the caretaker might have become unconscious andseriously ill for four or five days, but if she recovered and wasable to do her work again by the thirteenth day she wouldonly be entitled to recover compensation for one week whichin no case can exceed .81 a week and yet the medicalexpenses she had to pay may have far exceeded thatamount.

The Health and Safety of Young Children.Several cases affecting the health and the lives of little

children have recently been reported in the newspapersshowing a strong intention on the part of those administer-ing the law to protect this helpless section of the communityfrom the various dangers always threatening it. In therecent bitterly cold weather Mr. Denman had before him atMarlborough-street a man, 30 years of age, who was chargedwith exposing his son, aged four and a half years, in a waylikely to cause injury to his health. The child was placedon an organ which his father and another man were wheelingabout for the purpose of obtaining money. Mr. Denmancalled attention to the number of children thus made use ofin severe weather for the iniquitous purpose of extractingalms from kind-hearted but mistaken persons and to the lawwhich enabled him to punish the conduct of adults who sosubjected them to danger and suffering. He expressed hisdetermination to make the case an example and a warningto parents and others and sent the defendant to prison for amonth with hard labour. A street organ formed the meansby which the male defendant in another case " earned " hisliving. He and his wife were charged with neglecting fourchildren whose ages ranged from six years to 14 months.Their plan was not to take them out in the streetsbut to leave them locked up without food, fire, or sufficientclothing. A story was told apparently involving coi3jagalinfidelity on the part of both parents, and there wasan allegation of fear of her husband on the part of thewife, but the learned magistrate looked on the crueltyproved as sufficiently serious to warrant the infliction ofsentences of six months’ imprisonment on the man andof four months on the woman. At Bradford JamesTaylor, a labourer in the employment of the corporation,had beaten with shocking brutality his little girl, sevenyears of age, and his son, 13 years of age, besides nearlystrangling the latter. He received sentences amounting to12 months’ hard labour, accompanied by the expression ofthe opinion of the chairman of the bench that he was a

dastardly blackguard. In the first case mentioned above thepolice are to be congratulated upon the vigilance of a

constable; in the second and third the National Society forthe Prevention of Cruelty to Children conducted the prosecu-tion and obtained well-deserved success. Among recent

inquests showing the dangers which beset children may benoted one at St. Pancras at which it was proved that DaisyBell, six years of age, owed her death to her flannelettenightdress catching fire at a grate not protected by any fire-guard. Mr. W. Schröder, the coroner, called attention tothe Bill which proposes to make the omission to provide afireguard punishable as criminal neglect where a child hasdied in consequence and expressed a hope that the measuremight be reintroduced with success during the coming session.At another inquest held at Kingston it was proved that alittle girl, aged eight weeks, had been fed on boiled breadwhen her mother found that the child would not take thebreast. The body of the infant thus starved to deathweighed 5t pounds and the coroner, Mr. Michael H. Taylor,

after referring to the number of deaths of children frommalnutrition as " appalling," expressed the wish that girlsmight be taught at school more that would be useful to themin domestic life, even if they learnt less about other subjectsof a more strictly scholastic character. While the sympathyof all is rightly invoked for children wantonly neglected andill-treated allusion may be made to the observations of SirHoratio Davies uttered recently at the Guildhall police courtin connexion with the generous efforts of strangers to aidchildren and others whose cases are made prominent throughthe evidence of their destitution given in the law courts. In

thanking the press and the public on behalf of a case ofgenuine poverty and suffering, he pointed out with referenceto it and to that of several children then before him whohad been found wandering in the City that there was a riskof encouraging evilly disposed parents to send out theirchildren to beg with a view to their being broughtto the police court and so exciting sympathy. Twoother recent cases serve to illustrate the difficultiesagainst which the National Society for the Prevention ofCruelty to Children and those who sympathise with its effortshave to contend where deliberate cruelty can hardly be attri-buted to the parents but rather physical and mental incapacityto fulfil their duties. In the first instance the mother oftwo children of the respective ages of six and three yearswas said to be blind and quite incapable of cleansingor taking care of them. She spent her days sitting aboutin the streets, presumably in order to excite sympathy andto collect alms, and it was further stated that her husband,a man 62 years of age, ill-treated her and refused to lookafter his offspring. Summoned at the North London policecourt he was sentenced to three months’ hard labour for hisneglect. In the other case an inquest was held upon aninfant, three months old, one of twins, who, according to theevidence of Dr. Henry S. Souttar, house physician at theLondon Hospital, had been starved to death by the mother’sneglect. The other child present at the inquest in hismother’s arms was shown to the coroner, Mr. Wynne Baxter,,who expressed horror at his condition, and finding themother’s answers to his questions unsatisfactory, pursued hisinquiries with regard to her until he discovered that she hadrecently been an inmate of Claybury Asylum. He expressedthe opinion that she was on the borderland between sanityand insanity and expressed his intention of communicatingwith the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty toChildren.

FIVE YEARS’ EXPERIENCE OF A RECEP-TION HOUSE FOR RECENT CASES

OF INSANITY.

BY HAMILTON C. MARR, M.D. GLASG., F.F.P.S. GLASG.,MEDICAL SUPERINTENDENT, GLASGOW DISTRICT ASYLUM, WOODILEE,

LENZIE; MACKINTOSH LECTURER ON INSANITY,ST. MUNGO’S COLLEGE, GLASGOW.

THE question of the provision of increased accommodationat Woodilee Asylum was brought before the Glasgow DistrictLunacy Board in the latter part of the year 1900. In a

report submitted to the board it was urged, among otherconsiderations, that the required accommodation shouldembrace (1) a reception house ; (2) a sanatorium for theconsumptive insane ; and (3) a nurses’ home. Thisaccommodation the board decided to provide. The recep-tion house and sanatorium, which are similar in design,were opened for the admission of patients on Dec. 25th,1902 and the nurses’ home for 110 nurses was openedon Sept. 15th, 1904. Of the two former buildings I con-

fine my description to the reception house as my main

object in writing this paper is to give an account of thework that has been and is being done in it.The reception house is situated about a quarter of a mile

from the main administrative centre and is about 200 feetabove sea level. It is, in some respects, unique, and has beenthe object of much interest during the five years in which ithas been in operation. It presents those special features :(1) its construction is that of an ordinary hospital ; (2) theprovision of verandahs permits of the advantages of the

open-air treatment ; (3) all newly admitted patients are

received into it ; (4) patients whose illness is of short dura-tion are allowed to remain and thus avoid the necessity oftheir being sent to the main asylum ; and (5) the nursing ismainly done by women. The building consists of three