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880 Notes, Short Comments, and Answers to Correspondents. During the continuance of the war the size of THE LANCET will be curtailed. This has been necessitated primarily by the difficulty in ensuring an adequate supply of paper, but the contributions of most of our correspondents on the continent have failed, and will fail, to reach us. Many special features of THE LANCET have had to be sacrificed for the time, and while we ask the indulgence of our readers for this, we promise to restore them at the earliest possible opportunity. THE WISDOM OF ANIMALS. To the Editor of THE LANCET. SIR,-Your note last week under this heading prompts me to remind your readers that undoubtedly the endowment by popular consent of certain animals with certain qualities was the reason for much of the fanciful ancient pharmacy ; the underlying idea was that the exhibition of potions of the animal as a drug would endow man with the characteristic qualities of the animal. Animal remedies from the earliest times have proved the anthropomorphising tendency. The toad was ugly from the human point of view; therefore it was venomous, and in the late eighteenth century Gilbert White, of Selborne, had heard of a quack doctor eating toads whole either to prove that they were not poisonous or that he was poison proof. The toad really forms part of the ancient pharmacopoeia, which doubtless regarded it as a poison. All the drugs derived from the intestines or brains of quadrupeds and birds by our ancestors were sanctioned by fanciful human attributions. The flesh of certain birds was supposed to promote swiftness. The flesh of the lion, if procurable, was believed to infuse valour into the eater. Portions of goat were eaten in order to strengthen procreative powers. The superstitions concerning the animals being multifarious the composition of the various potions and electuaries became complicated in consequence. The jokers of old time who impressed their stories upon tribal credulity were responsible for this preposterous pharmacy. The persons who tell these stories nowadays to credulous editors are responsible for a certain amount of irritation. They have their joke, but they help to create a sentimentality which may be actively mischievous. I am, Sir, yours faithfully, Sept. 28th, 1914. A SERIOUS PERSON. MODERN MEDICAL POETS. IT is well to have among us, nowas of old time, a few discip] esof Æsculapius on whom at their birth Melpomene has glanced with tranquil eye. Mr. Augustus H. Cook, M.B. Lond., has published through Messrs. G. Bell and Sons, Limited, a little yolume of verses called " Eve Repentant and Other Poems." Though perhaps the verses are of somewhat unequal merit, they contain some good description, some picturesque flights of imagination, and in some of the verses a deep religious feeling smoothly and lucidly expressed. Major Greenwood, M.D., LL.B., in London, an Historical Poem " (originally printed in the June issue of the City of London Illustrated), traces, in nine-lined iambic pentameters, the last line being an Alexandrine, the rise and development of London in its main incidents and conditions. It contains reproductions of the Steel Yard and neighbourhood, from Van Wyngard’s plan taken for Philip II. of Spain, and a map of London from Lincoln’s Inn to the Tower, circa 1658. Yet a third medical writer of verse is Dr. F. Barber Wells, for whom Messrs. W. H. and L. Collingridge, 148, Aldersgate-street, have published (in khaki uniform with red facings) two war poems, which, we are informed, are " sold for the benefit of the Prince of Wales’s National Relief Fund." The first, entitled " 1914," is a sonorous ode on the war in the cadence of Gray’s Elegy. The second, " The Roll of the Drum," has a swinging rhythm that well suits the subject. THE LIBRARY OF THE MEDICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. Mr. George Bethell’s " Account of the Library of the Medical Society of London," which has been reurinted from the Library Association Record for May, contains a note on Dr. John Lettsom, the founder of the library, and recounts the history of the library with not a few interesting obiter dicta. It is true, for instance, that "the principal part of our knowledge must be ever derived from comparing our observations with those of others." Mr. Bethell quotes four variants of the well-known epigram on Lettsom. We learn that Dr. James Sims, who managed to be selected president of the society for 20 years, in 1800 succeeded in selling to the library a large number of books, for which he received JE500 cash down and an annuity of £30 a year for himself and his wife. A very interesting MS. in the library is the diary of Dr. John Ward, vicar of Stratford-on- Avon, who had practised medicine. One entry therein is worthy of special note : " Shakespear, Drayton, and Ben Jhonson (sic) had a merry meeting, and it seems drank too hard, for Shakespear died of a feavour there contracted." The living wage and discrimination against married employees appear, from the rules formulated by the committee on Jan. 25th, 1780, concerning the duties of an " under library keeper," to have been live questions even in those days, for it is stated that this official should be "rather a single person than married," and that he may have "a a sucfficient salary for his subsistence." The librarv contains some valuable incunabula and an excellent collection of Early English printed medical works of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in- cluding a reprint from the only copy of the original edition of Servetus’s "De Trinitate Divini" that escaped being burnt with its author by Calvin. Nearly all the copies of this reprint were burnt by Dr. Gibson, Bishop of London. THE RAGGED SCHOOL UNION AND THE WAR. To the Editor of THE LANCET. SIR,-This great crisis in the life of our nation has involved the withdrawal from our ranks of hundreds of men who have either joined the Territorials or enlisted, and there is immediate necessity for wholehearted men and women to volunteer as workers in filling up the gaps that the physical, social, and religious welfare of the children may not suffer. It is of the utmost importance to the nation that our 140 affiliated schools and missions should be maintained at their normal strength. It would be appalling to contemplate the state of our city poverty areas without such centres of light and healing. Our holiday homes, also, at Southend, Margate, Bognor, Bournemouth, and Windsor will be used throughout the year for poor cripple children suffering from serious com- plaints and who are quite unable to face the ordinary con- ditions of London life. Many of our missions in populous centres are rendering national service by allowing their premises to be used by the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Families Association, day clubs for unemployed boys, workrooms for girls and women, &c. All this, however, costs money- £100 a day is needed-and the measure of our ability to meet the dire need surrounding us is exactly the measure of the generosity of the public.-We are, Sir, yours faithfully, JOHN KIRK, Director. ARTHUR BLACK, Honorary Secretary. 32, John-street, Theobald’s-road, London, W.C., Sept. 25th, 1914. SURGICAL INSTRUMENTS FOR SALE. WE publish this week an advertisement offering for sale a complete set of surgical instruments and operating equip- ment. We know the circumstances in which the articles are for sale, and think that some of our readers might like to call the attention of the public to an opportunity that is being offered to them, at a time when gifts of this nature are being generously made for the assistance of military and Red Cross hospital organisation. RABIES AND MUZZLING IN NEW YORK. THE prevalence of rabies in New York recently led the Committee on Infectious Diseases of the Advisory Council of the New York Department of Health to adopt a muzzling order. The Commissioner of Health publishes in the Weekly Bulletin of the Department for Sept. 5th a series of extracts from the variegated correspondence that has poured in on him since the enforcement of the order. While much of it is commendatory, one writer has the temerity to assert that there is no such thing as mad dogs or people being bitten." The logical faculty of one writer can be estimated from the remark, " Surely an occasional mad dog will not lead you to condemn the whole race any more than an occasional insane human leads us to ask what is the use of any of us." Even in New York, how- ever, dangerous insane humans are confined’where they can do no harm. Another writer says that " you may as well banish children" as dogs. Fortunately the majority of correspondents seem to entertain more reasonable views. MILITARY SURGERY IN THE BALKANS. J. A. H.-The following two papers appeared in THE LANCET last year :-" Some Surgical Experiences during the Balkan War," by Sidney Smith (May 31st, 1913), and " Medical and Surgical Expe. ienoe in the Balkan War," by C. Max Page and S. Y. Anpleyard (July 19th and 26th, 1913). A
