355

LOUGHBOROUGH AND DISTRICT GENERAL HOSPITAL AND DISPENSARY.-Resident House Surgeon. Salary .S100 per annum, with rooms,attendance, board, and washing.

,

MAIDSTONE, WEST KENT GENERAL HOSPITAL.-Assistant House Surgeon,unmarried. Salary .S60, with board and lodging.

MANCHESTER, ANCOATS HOSPITAL.-Resident House Physician. SalaryB80 per annum, with board, residence, &c.

MANCHESTER CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL, Gartside-street.-Assistant MedicalOfficer (non-resident). Salary £100 per annum.

MILLER GENERAL HOSPITAL FOR SOUTH-EAST LONDON, Greenwich-road, S.E.-Junior House Surgeon for six months. Salary at rateof £80 per annum, with board, residence, and laundry.

MOUNT VERNON HOSPITAL FOR CONSUMPTION AND DISEASES OF THECHEST, Hampstead.-Junior Resident Medical Officer. Salary £50per annum, with board, lodging, &c.

NATIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO CHILDREN,Leicester-square, W.C.-Medical Inspector. Salary 2200 Der annum,rising to £300.

-NEWPORT AND MoNn2ouTHSHIxE HOSPITAL.-Third Resident MedicalOfficer. Salary jE60 per annum, with board, residence, and

laundry."QUEEN’S HOSPITAL FOR CHILDREN, Hackney-road, Bethnal Green, E.-

House Physician and Two House Surgeons for six months. Salariesat rate of £60 per annum, with board, residence, and laundry.

..ST. GEORGE’S HOSPITAL.-Resident Anaesthetist. Salary at rate of ,clOOper annum, with board and lodging.

.ST. LUKE’s HOSPITAL FOR MENTAL DISEASES, Old-street, London.-Clinical Assistant, unmarried, for six months. Board, apartments,and washing provided.

ST. MARY’S HOSPITAL FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN, Plaistow, E.-Senior Resident Medical Officer, unmarried. Salary at rate of £100per annum, all found. Also Assistant Resident Medical Officer, un-married. Salary at rate of B80 per annum, all found.

SHEFFIELD ROYAL HOSPITAL.-Assistant House Physician. Salary £50,with board, lodging, and washing.

SINGAPORE TOWN MUNICIPALITY, STRAITS SETTLEMENTS.-AssistantMunicipal Health Officer. Salary$4200, rising to$4800.

.SOUTHAMPTON, COUNTY BOROUGH oF.-Assistant Medical Officer ofHealth. Salary 2300 per annum.

’TEleNMOUTH HOSPITAL, SOUTH DEVON.-House Surgeon. Salary £70per annum, with board, lodging, and washing.

’

WAKEFIELD, WEST RIDING OF YORKSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL.-AssistantMedical Officer. Salary £300 per annum.

WEST HAM UNION INFIRMARY, Whipps Cross-road, Leytonstone, N.E.-Junior Assistant Medical Officer (female). Salary j6l00 per annum,with residential allowances.

WEST LONDON -HOSPITAL, Hammersmith-road, W.- Two HousePhysicians and Three House Surgeons for six months. Board,lodging, and laundry allowance provided.

’THE Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whitehall, S.W.,gives notice of a vacancy as Medical Referee under the Workmen’sCompensation Act, 1906, for County Court Circuit No. 7, attachedmore particularly to Birkenhead and Runcorn County Courts ; andthe Chief Inspector of Factories gives notice of a vacancy asCertifying Surgeon under the Factory and Workshop Act atPontardawe, in the county of Glamorgan.

Births, Marriages, and Deaths.BIRTHS.

DOUGLAS.-On July 23rd, at Wood-street, Walthamstow, the wife ofKenneth Harington Douglas, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., of a daughter.

SMITH.-On July 25th, at Cambridge-road, Seven Kings, Essex, thewife of Julius H. Smith, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P. Lond., of a daughter.

. SWETE-EVANS.-On July 22nd, at Malvern Lodge, Southport, the wifeof W. B. Swete-Evans, M.A., M.B., of a daughter.

MARRIAGES.CRAWFORD-PRINGLE.-On July 25th, at Adelaide-road Presbyterian

Church, Dublin, HenryM. L. Crawford, M.D., to Muriel, youngestdaughter of the late J. Pringle, Esq., of Clones, co. Monaghan,Ireland.

DEATHS.ARROL.-On July 23rd, at Connaught-square, Hyde Park, London,

Charles Arrol, M.D., C.M., L.R.C.S. Edin., aged 61 years.JONES.-On July 25th, at St. David’s, Pembury, Kent, John Talfourd

Jones, M.B. Lond., M.R.C.S., late of Brecon, South Wales, afteryears of illness borne with much fortitude, aged 71.

. STEVENSON.-On July 27th, at Sandhurst Lodge, Streatham, Sir ThomasStevenson, M.D., F.R.C.P., aged 70 years.

N.B.-A /ee of 5s. is charged for the insertion of Notices of Births,Marriages, and Deaths.

Notes, Short Comments, and Answersto Correspondents.

AN ACTION FOR LIBEL IN BARBADOES.

Mr. Frederick G. W. Deane, F.R.C.S. Edin., of Barbadoes, hasforwarded to us a file of the Barbadoes Agricultural -Reportercontaining a verbatim account of the trial of an action for libelwhich he brought recently against the proprietor and editor ofthe TVeekly Illustrated Paper, published in the same island.The alleged libel consisted of one of a series of articles, in-tended to be humorous, written in West Indian negro dialectand entitled "Lectures by Cuffie de Poole." The offending "lec-ture" referred in thinly veiled terms to the plaintiff’s professionalconnexion with certain events which had recently caused muchinterest in the island. It cast discredit upon the medical evidencewhich he had given during the course of an inquest upon a boy whohad died from shock following rupture of the intestines. As the resultof that evidence a Commission had been appointed to inquire intothe treatment which the boy had received at the General Hospital.The Commission had exonerated its medical officers from any imputa-tion of lack of care or skill in their conduct of the case. In thecourse of its inquiry it submitted Mr. Deane to an exhaustiveexamination upon the professional opinions which he had expressedat the inquest. Whilst this examination was in progress thedefendant in the libel action published the "Lecture by Cuffiede Poole," which Mr. Deane, the plaintiff, alleged was a

libel in that it held him up to ridicule and contained state-ments damaging to his professional reputation. The defencecalled no witnesses but relied on the arguments of Mr. Clarke,Solicitor-General, that the article contained only fair commenton a matter of public interest. The trial lasted for eight days. Inthe course of his summing up Chief Justice Greaves said: "The solecause of contention in this case and the cause of the appointment ofthe Commission was this: the hospital doctors held a consultationover this boy and expressed the opinion that it was better to wait asthey saw no symptoms that would justify an operation. On theother hand, Dr. Deane, when he was before the coroner, said that itwas very easy to diagnose a rupture of the intestines-from whichthis boy died-and that he thought an operation should have beenperformed at once in this case and that he would have operatedimmediately and would not have waited for symptoms. Therefore,it is a matter of very great public interest whether when a person istaken to the hospital with a history that something has run over himhe should be operated upon at once without waiting for symptoms,or whether it would not be wiser in the long run to wait for sym-ptoms." His lordship subsequently referred to the humorous andsatirical comments of Punch and other periodicals upon public affairs.The jury returned a verdict for the defendant, adding that they wereof opinion that the writer went rather far in making the commentswhich he made. Having read the article in question, which is

couched in somewhat unintelligible dialect, we incline to a like

opinion. Mr. Deane has our sympathies. It is not pleasant to belampooned, but in some circumstances it would appear more

expedient to adopt a policy of dignified silence under such provoca-tion than to appeal to the protection of the. law.

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY MEDICAL SOCIETIES.

A CORRESPONDENT writes in answer to the inquiry for informationunder this title last week: "The numerous medical papers in the

early numbers of the Philosophical Transactions ; the Medical Trans-actions of the College of Physicians, 1785-1820; the Medical Obser-vations by a Society of Physicians in London, 1776-84; EdinburghSociety of Physicians’ Commentaries, 1774-86-95; Medical SocietyLaws and Regulations, 1784, and their Memoirs, 1792-1805; RoyalMedical Society of Edinburgh, 1746; Students’ Society there, 1772;and the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, 1789-1802.These seem the obvious references. In the library at 20, Hanover-square is a manuscript scheme for constituting a Society of Physicians,1782; at Exeter there was a good library and at Bristol, both ofwhich, I expect, began before 1800; and there is a good old medicallibrary at Manchester and one at Lancaster, but I do not know theirdate. The London Medical Review began 1799 and the Edinburgh(Duncan) Aitnals of Medicine in the same year; the Medical andChirurgical Review (edited by Clutterbuck) appeared in 1795. Mostof the other extant journals began after 1800."-From anothercorrespondent we have received the following : "An interest-

ing account of the medical societies of the eighteenth century,with a full bibliography, was given by Dr. G. Newton Pittin his Hunterian oration at the Hunterian Society on Feb. 13th,1896 (THE LANCFT, May 9th, 1896, p. 1270). In addition the printedcatalogue of the library of the Royal Medical and ChirurgicalSociety under the heads, ’Transactions’ and ’Journals,’ shouldbe consulted. For still greater completeness the catalogue of theBritish Museum, under heads ’Academies’ and probably under

’Journals,’ might be referred to. A visit to the library of the RoyalCollege of Surgeons of England to inspect their copious catalogue ofJournals and Transactions might also be recommended. The libraryof the Royal College of Physicians of London contains a good manysimilar journals and transactions, but is not so complete, and all

356

large medical libraries would yield similar information."-A thirdcorrespondent writes : "In a footnote at page 4 of the London l’1ledicalRepository, blonthLy Journal, and Review, No. 7, July 1st, 1814, itis stated that the earliest periodical publication in this country’appropriated entirely to Medicine was the Bibliotheca Anatomica,Medica, et Chirurgica, which came out monthly and went to theextent of three quarto volumes.’ As the date is not given the state-ment is annoyingly inadequate. Timperley, in his useful but defec-tively indexed Encyclopaedia of Literary and Typographical Anecdote’(1842) has the following bald entry: ’1774. Jan. The lVledical l1faga-zine. No. 1.’"-A fourth correspondent writes: "Eleven volumesappeared between 1781 and 1790 of The London tlledical Journal by aSociety of Physicians. It was continued as ihledical Facts andObservations.

RETENTION OF A PESSARY.

To the Editor of THE LANCET.

SIR,-I do not attempt to point any lesson or deduce any moral fromthe following incident. An elderly woman consulted me for an offensivevaginal discharge of a year’s duration, accompanied lately by consider-able haemorrhage and pain. Her impression was that she was rapidlyfailing in health and when I made an appointment to examine her Ihad little doubt that I should have an unfavourable story to tell. Judgeof my surprise when I discovered a large ring pessary, very much theworse for wear. The patient’s astonishment was equal to mine andevidently she had no knowledge of it. Her explanation was that oversix years ago she was examined, without an anaesthetic, at a leadingLondon hospital and that the pessary must have been introduced thenwithout her being aware of the fact. Thus for six years, all uncon-

sciously, she has been wearing this instrument. I may say that thewoman is particularly intelligent and not at all neurotic.

I am, Sir, yours faithfully,E. F. O’FFRRALL, L.R.C.P. Lond.

A MIDWIFE CENSURED.

Charlotte Bradford, a registered midwife, was censured by the Brightoncoroner (Mr. Bush) at an inquest at the Brighton workhouse onJuly 24th. On July 16th the midwife was called to a case of a womannamed Doreri. Three days’ later Doreri became seriously ill and wastaken to the workhouse infirmary where she died from puerperalsepticaemia. Dr. Douglas M. Ross, medical officer of the work-

house, said that the condition of the deceased was accounted for

by the fact that on July 13th, three days prior to having beencalled to the case of Doreri, the midwife had laid out a childwho had died from erysipelas. Dr. Ross said that he had neverknown so many cases of puerperal fever as had come under his noticeat the workhouse within the last year or two. In each case amidwife had attended. It was most serious for midwives to lay outdead bodies. The coroner said that Mrs. Bradford’s conduct was mostserious, especially as there had been a previous similar case, and nodoubt representations would be made to the Midwives Board inLondon. The coroner added that he had ascertained that Mrs.Bradford was not an examined and certified nurse, but was registeredbecause she was a midwife at the time of the passing of the Act.

A CASE OF PERSISTENT SWEATING.To the Editor of THE LANCET.

SIR,-Could any brother practitioner suggest any treatment likely torelieve a patient suffering from flushing followed by profuse sweating ? Talking, eating, drinking, or the slightest exertion brings it on. The

consequence is she is practically wet through all day and in the night.She is about 57 years of age. Two years ago she had an attack of double

pneumonia, and as her heart was weak she nearly succumbed, but finallypulled through, and has been suffering more or less from these sweatssince. The bases of the lungs even now, in spite of treatment, are notquite normal. Any suggestion likely to afford relief would be muchappreciated. I am, Sir, yours faithfully,

QUÆRENS.PURE AIR FOR INDOOR WORKERS.

UNDER this title Dr. Thomas Glover Lyon read an interesting paper atthe recent meeting of the Royal Sanitary Institute at Cardiff, in thecourse of which he made an amusing onslaught on the hygiene ofcongresses. As he was reading his paper at the annual congress of asociety devoted to the advancement of hygiene he pointed out thateverything connected with the congress should be an object-lesson ofhygiene. He added: " When, however, I call to mind my experiencesof congresses, such as the present, I find them irresistibly associatedwith hot and stuffy rooms. Exhibition buildings are almost alwayshopelessly bad from a hygienic point of view. Here, again, it must beremembered that it is the exhibition hands who go about the countryfrom exhibition to exhibition that suffer, not the members of thecongress who occasionally visit the exhibition. The same applies toother places of employment, for instance, restaurants. A City manusually snatches a hasty luncheon and returns to his office, but thewaiters and other servants spend the whole day in the atmosphere ofthe restaurant. I once suggested to a proprietor of a City restaurantthat, if good ventilation were provided, his customers would be ableto smoke without annoying their neighbours. His answer was, Wedo not want them to smoke, we want them to eat their lunch andgo."’ After summarising the effects of bad air upon all classes ofworkmen Dr. Lyon came to the conclusion that although many of themore enlightened employers of labour are taking steps in the rightdirection, competition appears to render it hopeless to look for aremedy except by legislation. "Nor can it," he says, "be expected

that a good result will be obtained by tinkering np old methods ; thèwhole question must be reconsidered. In the first place, any regula-tions as to floor space and area of inlets must fail to meet the case.Regulations must be made to insure a proper amount of air at asuitable temperature passing through the rooms where workers areemployed; and this air must be properly distributed."

SWEATING BATHS.A MEDICAL correspondent writes :-" The value of the Turkish bath tomany persons in many conditions is well known to all medical menand the ventilation of such baths is a most important matter. I have

recently thoroughly examined the system of ventilation of Constan-tine’s Turkish Bath Establishment in Oxford-street, Manchester, andthe result may be worthy of notice in your columns. The fresh-air

supply is drawn directly from the open air by shafts and is then heatedby being brought into contact with the outside of two convoluted stovesin a brick chamber. The hot air is then carried to the different bath-rooms, each of which has its special and separate hot-air supply-shaft.Afterwards the used-up air is extracted from each bath-room by aseparate ’ foul-air extractor flue.’ Each of these foul-air flues opensdirectly into the great chimney and the used-up air is conveyed to theouter air high above the roof. The ventilation is continuous day andnight. In addition to the Turkish baths there is a ’special sweatingbath,’ in which,. by means of an arrangement whereby steam isadmitted to a chamber wherein the air has been previously warmed,sweating is produced at a much lower temperature than in theordinary Turkish bath. Usually a temperature of 120 ° F. is foundsufficient for this purpose. This is a modification of the ordinaryTurkish bath which may be of considerable service in some cases.There are also sulphur vapour baths and a mercurial bath, the directutility of which is obvious."

AN ANTISEPTIC TELEPHONE CAP.As we mentioned last week, our references to the dangers of the publictelephone have stimulated inventors to send us suggestions andsamples of their inventions. From the London Scottish ElectricalCompany, of 67, Leadenhall-street, London, and 235. High Holborn,we have received a " Blake Microtector Antiseptic Telephone Cap,"which takes the form of a false rim for the telephone mouthpiece,with a perforated diaphragm filling up the annular space. The capis ;constructed of a material resembling vulcanite but is much moretough. Upon one or both sides of the diaphragm can be placed a discof a buckram-like fabric. This fabric is impregnated with a

special antiseptic fluid supplied by the manufacturers. The priceof the caps is 21s. per dozen, and sufficient pieces of fabric are

supplied to last 12 months. An advantage of this invention is thatbeing small it can be easily carried in the pocket, and any person canthus use his or her own "cap." The caps are made to fit the P.O.and N.T.C. mouthpieces and if used according to instructions shouldserve a useful purpose. It is hardly necessary to point out that allinventions of this kind constructed on the principle of a periodicalrenewal of an antiseptic depend for their efficiency on routine atten-tion, and in the bustle of modern business life sanitary precautionsunfortunately are sometimes sacrificed to the imperious demands oftime. Could not the necessities of the case be met by providing eachpublic call office with some kind of aseptic paper mouthpiece whichcould be used by each individual and afterwards destroyed ?

VULNOPLAST.WE have had brought to our notice by the Liverpool Lint Company(Mark-street Mills, Netherfield-road North, Liverpool) a new

dressing termed "Vulnoplast," which, we are informed, is growingin popularity in Germany. The dressing is likely, we think, to findfavour in Great Britain, in consequence of its convenience. It con-sists of strips of gauze properly backed and treated with any requiredantiseptic of the usual strength, and is supplied in various widthsand lengths, from one and a half inches to four and three-quarterinches wide and from half a yard to five and a half yards long, put upin tin boxes. It is obvious that such a dressing might be very largelyused in a surgeon’s private practice.

Pharmacist.-We agree with every word of our correspondent’s interest-ing letter and we have already undertaken, in some such way assuggested, the analysis of many of these remedies. The victims ofthe extortions of quacks do not, however, read the columns ofTHE LANCET, so that they do not benefit by our warnings.

COMMUNICATIONS not noticed in our present issue will receive attentionin our next.

M E T E O R O L O G I C A L R E A D I N G S.(Taken daily at 8.30 a.m. by Steward’s Instruments.)

THE LANCET Office, July 30th, 1908.