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338 Notes, Short Comments, and Answers to Correspondents. RELIGION AND QUACKERY. A ROMAN Catholic newspaper makes the following extraordinary com- ments upon the letter signed " E. J. H." which appeared in the columns of THE LANCET of July 19th (page 194). Medicinal Controversy.—THE LANCET has opened its columns to a correspondent. " E. J. H.," who, to judge from his sympathies, is also a medicine man. This "E. J. H." is indignant that the monks of Buckhurst Abbey should advertise their salve, suggesting that for reprisals’ sake some members of the medical profession should announce that they will be prepared to " preach, hear confessions, and perform some of the other functions peculiar to the clergy." Can’t " E. J. H." see he is doing the first, albeit, badly, whilst the body, we take it he represents, is not unaccustomed to hear con- fessions in quite another form. The editorial comment is quite juridical, and apparently without prejudice. A Matter oj Discretior2.-But there are very many persons who trust simple remedies rather that the complex and unknown qualities of the medicines used by the modern disciples of Galen and Hippocrates, to say nothing of ’Esculapius. Given this fact, we would ask the editor of THE LANCET. Is it not better that the preparation of these simple remedies should be in the hands of trusty monks than, as sometimes happens, in those of men of little skill and less stability of character ? The question of the propriety of advertising the remedies is quite out of THE LANCET editor’s range, and, when approval is given by Catholic authorities, we would advise the physician to stick to his pharmacopoeia, and mind his own patients. As the editor of our contemporary has asked us the question we have no hesitation in saying that it is not better that the prepara- tion of any remedies should be in the hands of monks, for monks in their corporate capacity are not chemists, pharmacologists, or medical men. A " trusty " monk is one who discharges his monastic duties with conscientiousness, not one who makes salves. Lord Kitchener is a "trusty" soldier and Mr. Victor Trumper is a " trusty " cricketer, but neither gentleman ought to be allowed to manufacture and to traffic in medicinal nostrums, because neither has received the necessary training. We think that we know our own range, but we are certain that the editor who questions this matter is not in an equally good plight: he does not understand the evils of quackery, the qualifications of professional medical men, or the limitations of professional pietists. He is apparently unaware that the duties to the community discharged by the monks in the middle ages have now devolvec[ on other people, all the education of the country being no longer centred in the Church. THE LANCET, by the way, is not concerned with differences of religious opinions, and we need hardly say that our feelings would be just as much against a confraternity of the English Church making and selling medicinal remedies as it is against similar action on the part of a Roman Catholic body : frequent evidence of this impartiality will be found in our columns. FUND FOR MEMORIAL TO LATE SURGEON-GENERAL NASH. THE following additional subscriptions have been received:- £ s. d. £ S. d. Surgeon-General J. B. C. £ s. d. Previously a c k n o w- £ s. d. Reade, C.B., K.H.S.... 1 0 0 ledged .......... 111 1 0 Lieutenant-Colonel L. E. Anderson ......... 1 0 0 Total ......... 114 1 0 Surgeon-Major - General J. Davis ......... 1 0 0 "A NOVEL PATENT." UNDER this heading in THE LANCET of May 17th, 1902, page 1434, we drew attention to a patent " burial vault," consisting of a kind of outer coffin, having a groove or channel all round the upper margin of the main portion or body, to contain a sealing material, while the lid has a flange which dips into the sealing material. We understand that Dr. L. G. Thompson some 14 years ago, while he was surgeon superintendent of Launceston Hospital, Tasmania, designed a similar metal shell having a lid fitting into a water joint. The shell had a glass window in it so that a body could be viewed. THE "Y" FUND. SURGEON-GENERAL H. S. Mum begs thankfully to acknowledge additional donations towards the above Fund from Lieutenant- Colonel J. W. U. Macnamara, 1.M.S., and the following officers of the Royal Army Medical Corps :-Colonel J. Dallas Edge, C.B. ; Lieu- tenant-Colonels J. Lees Hall, W. J. Baker, J. A. Gormley, T. J. O’Donnell, D.S.O., C. W. Thiele, G. E. Twiss, and E. Butt; Majors W. W. Pike, D.S.O., C. Birt, F. R. Newland, T. B. Beach, H. T. Knaggs, Reilly, and T. Du B. Whaite; Captains C. E. Pollock, H. B. G. Walton, G. B. Crisp, D. D. Shanahan, G. W. Tate, J. Hennessy, J. C. Jameson, G. St. C. Thom, Chevers, C. G. Spencer, and J. II. Rivers ; Lieu- tenants W. L. Steele, H. Richardson, R. F. M. Fawcett, J. V. Roche, J. J. W. Prescott, D.S.O , and H. Bransbury ; and Lieutenants and Quartermasters Spackman and Morrison. The fund now amounts to .E483. It may be explained that this is in response to an appea) made privately to members of the profession for benevolent aid in a distressing case which has been described in a letter sent to a limited number of medical men (who would help the cause by kindly "handing on" to confréres). Should any reader of THE LANCET desire further particulars with a view to expressing practical sympathy, a copy of the letter will be forwarded on application to Surgeon-General Muir, 26, Kensington-gardens-terrace, Hyde Park, London, W. INCOME TAX AND CLUB APPOINTMENTS. WE have received the following letter for publication. It is a copy of one sent to the Inland Revenue by a medical man holding a clul, appointment :- Alderney House, Alderney, C.I., July 12th, 1902 SIR,-The enclosed :£2 4s. 4d., 1st quarter’s moiety, 1902, 1 sel:r1 under protest and intend to apply to the Income Tax Peplv- ment Association with regard to this payment’ and two previcus payments. The charge is in regard to profits from appointment as medical officer under the Shepton Mallet Board. When I tell you that the appointment consists in taking charge and visiting at all hours of the day and night the sick and infirm of ten (10) parishes- viz., Ashwick, Oakhill, Binegar, Emboro, Stratton-on-the-Fosse, Holcombe, Stoke Lane, Downhead, West Cranmore, and East Cranmore, and supplying drugs and instruments, for £115 per annum (which includes keeping and attending three distant surgeries) you will wonder where the profit comes in. The district, extends from Chewton Mendip to Leigh-on-Mendip (12 miles) an,1 from Chilcomptoit to Shepton Mallet (10 miles); one horse cannot work it. The Shepton Mallet Board, with a wealthy brewer at its head (I hope he pays income tax for all his public-houses), cuts the doctor down to 10s. for a midwifery case, and driving miles to examine anu certify a lunatic is reduced from 21s. to 10s. When I attended a. confinement I sometimes had to pay 12s. for carriage hire and have gone nine miles in the snow in the middle of the night. The entering and clerking of all the cases, correspondence, &c., is worth employing a clerk for. Other unions pay for operations and fractures, Shepton Mallet does not (and it is a wealthy union). The reason I have troubled you with this statement is that for the last four years I have lillerl up forms and returned them in the usual way and found that after satisfying the assessor or collector at Emboro (Mr. Flower) I had then to deal with the surveyor at Wells, and after receiving assurances from him with regard to my position I have had to dea with the gentleman at Frome and iinally found that Bath bad joined in and that from all parts of the compass I was now being set upon to disgorge some of the " profits." If the same efforts had been directed against higher game what a fine income Oakill would bring in. After what I have told you with regard to No. 2 (Ashwick and Oakhill) district, Shepton Mallet Union, you will not be surprised to know that about a dozen medical officers in as many years have moved across its horizon as in a cinematograph, so to speak, and that if the income tax goes on ’ while the salary remains stationary the rate of the procession ’s progress will receive a still further stimulus. I was, Sir, truly yours, (Signed) J. J. HANLY, M.A., L.R.C.P. & S.Ed., Late Med. Officer, Ashwick District. The Secretary, Inland Revenue, Somerset House. THE DIMINISHING POPULATION OF FRANCE. THE French people are threatened with a new danger. An attempt is being made to obtain an alteration Of the law to enable any citizen to obtain for the sum of one franc a "permit de chasse" available for one day. Amongst the numerous and brilliant accomplishments of the French shooting is not generally reckoned and the possibility that anyone may obtain a shooting licence for a franc has a serious aspect. The gentleman who writes on Shooting in Le Figaro is fairly aghast at the danger; as he feelingly observes, "it would be impossible to walk in the country without the risk of being shot." The ordinary Briton looks with some misgiving on the present French sportsman. but he, at any rate, is a picturesque object when fully attired for the chase, and it does not appear that he is, as a rule, particularly destructive to any form of living creature, human or otherwise. Should the franc sportsman come into being a new industry may be started in letting out to him a suitable " habit de chasse " and a gun. and we would commend the idea to M. Caran d’Ache, the first o’ living caricaturists. His facile pencil would avail more than the strongest words we could pen to avert a danger which would undoubtedly tend to depopulate France. EAR DRUMS. THE A. P. Murray Company of Century House, Regent-street.W.. IS issuing circulars, curiously enough addressed " To the Medical Pro- fession," calling attention to the "Murray" Invisible Ear Drum. It is distributing a sample outlit of assoitecl drums for 178. 6,1.. saying that " the treatment of deafness is one which most physician, have overlooked, and yet it is a most lucrative one." Possibh- that is why the A. P. Murray Company has stepped into the breach. In
