675

made of its capacity to abolish hiccup ; the small

quantity required to produce this effect has no noticeableeffect on the blood-pressure or respiration.A convenient method is to dilute 100 mg. pethidine with

pyrogen-free water up to 10 ml. in a syringe of that size ;thus each millilitre of solution contains 10 mg. pethidine.According to the age and build of the patient, an intravenousdose of 2-3-5 rnl. of this solution (20-35 rng. of pethidine) willinvariably abolish hiccup within 90 seconds, and the drugremains effective for a considerable time.

Postoperative and other forms of hiccup will alsosometimes respond to this method.

St. James’ Hospital, J. MORTON MACDONALDLondon, S.W.12. Anæsthetics Registrar.

J. MORTON MACDONALDAnæsthetics Registrar.

St. James’ Hospital,London, S.W.12.

THE ETHICS OF LEUCOTOMY

SIR,—Dr. Atkin, in your issue of March 22, writes :"... the mind always functions as a whole. A neurotic,apart from his symptoms, suffers also from a faultycharacter and personality..." The second asseverationcontradicts the first.Dr. Atkin, later in his letter, avers : "... I do not

mean to pass any moral censure on the neurotic ..."He has, in the second statement noted above, founda verdict of guilty against the neurotic.The desirability or otherwise of leucotomy, in each

individual instance, should be assessed in terms ofclinical medicine, rather than by means of an affirmationof inspiration tempered by a pseudo-ethical judgment.London, W.1. MURDO MACKENZIE.MURDO MACKENZIE.

TERRAMYCIN IN THE PROPHYLAXIS OFOPHTHALMIA NEONATORUM

SIR,—I regret that my article (Feb. 16, p. 347) con-tained two errors. The Strength of the eye-drops wasin fact 5 mg. per ml., and of the ointment 1 mg. per g.For the ointment the makers now recommend a strengthof 5 mg. per g.Postgraduate Medical School of DONOUGH O’BRIEN.

London, W.12.DONOUGH O’BRIEN.Postgraduate Medical School of

London, W.12.

CORSETS AND CHLOROSIS

SIR,—Your leading article last week will be of interestto the rapidly diminishing number of medical men whohave seen a case of chlorosis.You speak of it as- an iron-deficiency anaemia, but is

this certainly true ? Chlorosis has never, for obviousreasons, been investigated by modern haemotologicalmethods ; but Haldane and Lorrain Smith insisted thatthe cardinal defect was an increase of plasma-ahydræmia—rather than a deficiency of haemoglobin inthe circulating red cells : hence the importance of

giving magnesium sulphate along with’ Blaud’s pills,which was the standard treatment.As regards the tight-corset theory it would be pertinent

to ask two questions. Did the mill girl of Lancashire weartight corsets-except on Sundays or Saturdays ? Theycertainly had chlorosis. Did the sufferers from chlorosisabandon their tight corsets on marriage ? They cer-tainly lost their chlorosis.Buxton. F. ARNOT BEARN.F. ARNOT BEARN.

INTRATHECAL AUREOMYCIN IN MENINGITIS

SIR,—The views of Mr. Martinez (March 15) on intra-thecal aureomycin in meningitis can be assailed both ongeneral principle and in relation to the practical detailsof the cases discussed by Dr. Ainley-Walker and Dr.Bosanquet (March 1).Mr. Martinez’s belief that the infection in purulent

meningitis is situated only in the vascular pia mater failsto account for the presence of living, culturable organismsin the cerebrospinal fluid (c.s.F.). He must admit thatalthough the primary site of the infection may be in thepia mater, yet there are large numbers of organisms onthe subarachnoid side of the membrane, and that there

must therefore be some point in administering anti-biotics by the intrathecal route provided that systemictreatment is given simultaneously. Moreover, in twoof the cases to which allusion was made it seemed likelythat the infection had been introduced intrathecally,and was in fact situated primarily on the c.s.F. side ofthe membrane. What is more reasonable, therefore,than to treat the cases with intrathecal antibiotics ?

Mr. Martinez implies that systemic aureomycin mighthave saved the three patients who died. Yet two ofthem had tuberculous meningitis in addition, and thethird a severe head injury-features that are overlookedin Mr. Martinez’s letter. A more important point wasthat in the only case which recovered Dr. Ainley-Walkerhad found that " systemic aureomycin had failed tocontrol the infection." It was only when aureomycinwas put into the abscess cavity that the condition

improved.Department of Neurology, I, ARoyal Infirmary, Manchester. L. A. ijIVEBSEDGE.L. A. LIVERSEDGE.Department of Neurology,

Royal Infirmary, Manchester.

ObituaryGEORGE WILLIAM MARSHALL FINDLAY

C.B.E., M.D., Sc.D. Edin., F.R.C.P.

Dr. G. W. M. Findlay was a man of many talents,and during his life he won distinction not only as aresearch-worker in tropical medicine but also as a

scholar and editor.He was born in 1893, the son of Dr. George Findlay, of

Brailes, Warwickshire. From Dean Close School,Cheltenham, he went toEdinburgh University, andhe was in the last year ofhis medical course when warbroke out in 1914. He atonce volunteered as medicalaide in the Belgian Army,but after a few months hereturned to Edinburgh totake his M.B. degree withfirst-class honours in 1915.-He immediately joined theRoyal Navy, where he servedas a surgeon lieutenant tillthe end of the war. For theseservices he received the 1914star and the medaille duRoi Albert and was appointedO.B.E.

On demobilisation he returned to Edinburgh, wherehe held Lister, Carnegie, and Freeland Barbour fellow-ships before he was appointed lecturer in pathology atEdinburgh University in 1920. He also acted as

assistant pathologist to the Royal Infirmary. In 1923,with an Alice memorial fellowship, he was appointedan assistant at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund.Five years later he joined the scientific staff of theWellcome Research Institution, where his interest in

tropical virus diseases found scope. During the nextyears he travelled widely and visited the Pasteur Insti-tutes in Paris and Tunis and the Rockefeller Institutein New York. But it was the problems of diseasein Africa that he made specially his own. For hisstudies on immunisation against yellow fever in theGambia he was promoted c.B.E. in 1935. But, alongsidethe observer, the synthesiser was already at work, andin 1930 the first edition of his Recent Advances in Chemo-therapy appeared. This was accounted a bulky recruitto the series, for the first edition had over 500 pages.The third edition which is now appearing is to havefour volumes, of which Findlay had finished the thirdshortly before his death. -

During the second world war the growing importanceof the African battlefields made it inevitable that Findlayshould be asked for counsel and help. In the early yearshe visited Tunis to advise on trench fever and laterAbyssinia to advise on yellow fever. In 1942 he was

appointed consulting physician to the West AfricanForces with the rarik of brigadier. Those who knew

676

him forecast that the consequences of this, appointmentwere bound to be evident and could not be dull. Inthis they were right. Doubters who believed that WestAfrica at war would take the sting out of him under-estimated Findlay. He .brought great activity to themedical work of the Force, for he had a way of generatingthe kind of enthusiasm which remained after he hadgone. He made medical. officers feel that their contribu-tion was vital-as indeed it was-and they knew thatif they ran into trouble in a good cause they could counton his backing. With Maegraith he also did a greatdeal to make the laboratory services contribute theirfull quota of basic information about the health of thetroops. He himself led a team which conducted a seriesof interesting experiments into the spread of infectivehepatitis and homologous serum jaundice.

"

Findlay’s first encounter with the hard facts of militarymedicine in West Africa was characteristic," J. W. H. relates." He discussed a scheme for the introduction of mepacrineto suppress malaria. He was advised that his proposed dosagewas not sufficient and that he should not withdraw quinineso abruptly as he proposed. He argued the matter at lengthwith good humour and courtesy but without giving an inch.He thought that the objections to his scheme were theoreticaland that the result of a trial would establish this. It was notso. Within two weeks of its being launched, Findlay’s schemewas drastically amended by his own decision, and in futurediscussions he handsomely agreed that he had been wrong.Moreover, he even congratulated units whose medical officershad shown the good sense, as he put it, to see that they actedas controls !

" One impression persists with great clarity. How muchof the literature of anything he knew. He rememberedreferences to everything and -anything ; and he sometimesrecalled them in great-detail, quoting correctly from memoryeven volume and page numbers. On virus infections, particu-larly, there seemed to be nothing that he had not read. Allthis he gave freely ’in discussion which he was ever willing tojoin. He was not right about everything though he admittedfew doubts to his arguments, and some perhaps took thisattitude as evidence of over-confidence. But Findlay neverran away from a fact, and if he could be proved wrong hewould yield with true humility—but it was hard to catchhim out. We shall miss his enthusiasm and the readiness withwhich he could rouse the same quality in others."

Soon after his return from West Africa Findlay movedround the corner from the Wellcome Institution toB.M.A. House, where he undertook the organisation andeditorship of the Abstracts of World Medicine and WorldSurgery, Obstetrics and Gyncecology. Here his gifts oferudition and clarity were used, but he refused to give upall contact with research and he still found time tosnatch a few hours in the laboratory. Lately he hadpublished in the British Medical Journal the result ofsome of his work on the Coxsackie virus. In 1948 hewas elected F.R.C.P., and last year he presided over

the Royal Microscopical Society, the honorary editorof whose journal he had been for many years. He wasalso chairman of the abstracting services consultativecommittee of the Royal Society.Of these busy and varied years S. S. B. G. writes :" A genial and versatile personality, Findlay had a great

capacity for making friends with all sorts and races of men,and it was not uncommon to find an African, an Indian, aPole, or a Frenchman waiting in his anteroom to renew anold and valued acquaintance. Nor were these internationalfriendships confined to periodic exchanges of small talk.There is good reason to suspect that his advice and aid wereoften sought, and generously given. He wore a perpetual airof boyish good humour ; indeed I have only once seen himgenuinely angry-when a newspaper had rather shamefullybetrayed a confidence. He was the most approachable ofmen, and had that complete absence of class-consciousnesswhich is so refreshing to encounter in this age of the battle o fthe income-groups.

" The range of his interests was impressive. The editor’sroom was always littered with great numbers of books andperiodicals on every conceivable subject from viruses to witch-craft. How he found time to read them all remains a mystery,but he undoubtedly did read them. Aided by a prodigiousmemory, he was always willing to transfer at a moment’snotice some of this store of knowledge to paper. He wrote

rapidly and well on all sorts of matters. It is unfortunatethat our hope that he would continue to entertain and informus for many years is not to ho fulfilled."

At his home at Itadlett, Marshall Findlay sharedwith his wife and two daughters a happy family circle.A devoted husband and father, he was content with asimple life which his companionship and happypersonality enriched for others. He died on March 14.

ROBERT WILLIAM DODGSON

O.B.E., M.D. Lond., M.R.C.P.

Dr. R. W. Dodgson, who was a relative of "LewisCarroll," died on March 4 at his home in Conway. Hewill be remembered for his work on typhoid fever andparticularly its transmission by mussels.He was born at Wigton, in Cumberland, in 1871, and

educated at Owens College, Manchester, and St. Mary’sHospital, Paddington, where he qualified in 1895.The following year he took the M.B. Lond., and in 1898he obtained a gold medal in the M.D. examination. Hewas appointed assistant pathologist at St. Mary’s Hos-pital, and in 1899 he went to South Africa as a specialservice medical officer to investigate results of anti-typhoid inoculation amongst British troops. From1901 to 1903 he acted as director of the Governmentresearch laboratory at Cape Town. In 1912 he was amember of Sir Almroth Wright’s team which went toJohannesburg to inquire into the high death-rate frompneumonia among native workers in the gold mines.This investigation led to the introduction of prophylacticinoculation.In 1914, after a round of visits to Continentallabora-

tories to compare their methods with our own, he reachedEngland from Germany just four days before war wasdeclared.

-

The following year he was appointed bacteriologistat the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries researchstation at Conway. In 1921 he was promoted toprincipal naturalist and he later became director ofthe station, a post which he held till 1937, when hewas appointed consultant for shellfish services beforeretiring two years later. It was at Conway thathe carried out his research into the transmissionof typhoid fever by shellfish. He installed large tanksin which the mussels were laid in chlorinated sea-waterand then washed in fresh water, so that free from allpollution they were sent in sealed bags’ to the fish-mongers. He described this work in his pamphletShellfish and the Public Health and in his monographon Mussel Purification which appeared in 1928. Hisservice was recognised by his appointment as O.B.E.

KONRAD DOBRINERM.D., D. Med. Sci. Munich

MANY engaged in the biochemistry of cancer and in .related fields will have heard with regret of the deathin New York on March 10 of Dr. Konrad Dobriner ofthe Sloan-Kettering Institute and Memorial HospitalCenter.Born at Elberfeld in 1902, he graduated from the

University of Freiburg in 1925, and shortly afterwardsreceived the degrees of doctor of medicine and doctorof medical science of the University of Munich. Afteremigrating to the United States in 1933, he worked asa research fellow in the University of Rochester MedicalSchool from 1934 to 1936, and later for three years atthe hospital of the Rockefeller Institute. In 1939 he wasappointed head of the department of research chemistryof the Memorial Hospital, and he became a member of theSloan-Kettering Institute in 1947, with the additionaltitle three years later of associate professor of medicinein Cornell University Medical School.

Dr. Dobriner was the author of some 80 contributionsto the medical and scientific literature, either alone orjointly with such workers as C. P. Rhoads, L. F. Fieser,S. Lieberman, R. N. Jones, T. F. Gallagher, and C. C.Stock. His earlier interests lay in the field of porphyriaexcretion, and later topics included the metabolism of r

specific carcinogens such as 1 : 2 : 5 : 6-dibenzanthracene, &bgr;-naphthylamine and dimethylaminoazobenzene, and the carcinogenicity of benzidine.

677

"Of recent" years," writes A. H., " Dobriner hadcontributed largely to the establishment of the patternsof urinary excretion of the steroid hormones in normaland pathological states, the application of infra-red

spectroscopy to steroid structure and metabolism, andthe study of the effects of cortisone and related steroidson the growth of experimental tumours. From theselater researches he was. gradually evolving a view andinterpretation of the role of adrenal cortical dysfunctionin the inception and development of malignant diseaseas a whole. A welcome visitor to England, he had takenpart in various symposia at the Ciba Foundation andat other meetings elsewhere, and his friends had lookedforward to meeting him at the International Congressof Biochemistry in Paris this summer. Many, not onlyin the country of his adoption but far beyond it, willmourn Dobie as a valued colleague and generous friend."

Diary of the Week

MARCH 30 TO APRIL 5

Tuesday, 1 st

ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS, Pall Mall East, S.W.15 P.M. Prof. Robert Platt : Structural and Functional Adaptation

in Renal Failure. (First of two Lumleian lectures.)ROYAL EYE HOSPITAL, St. George’s Circus, S.E.15 P.M. Mr. T. M. Tyrrell : Cataract Extraction.

Wednesday, 2ndROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, W.C.2

5 P.M. Mr. S. M. Cohen : Peripheral Aneurysm and ArteriovenousFistula. (Hunterian lecture.)

ROYAL SOOIETY OF MEDICINE, 1, Wimpole Street, W.18 P.M. Section of Surgery. Dr. Hayes Martin (New York), Dr.

A. Tailhefer (Paris), Sir Stanford Cade : Treatment ofCervical Met’1static Cancer.

ROYAL EYE HOSPITAL5.30 P.M. Mr. Howard Reed : Visual Fields.

ROYAL INSTITUTE OF PUBLIC HEALTH AND HYGIENE, 28, PortlandPlace, W.1

3.30 P.M. Prof. R. S. Illingworth : Disturbances of Sleep inChildren.

MANCHESTER MEDICAL SOCIETY4.30 P.M. (University of Manchester.) Section of Medicine. Dr.

Lawrence Kilroe : All in the Day’s Work.YORKSHIRE SOCIETY OF ANAESTHETISTS .

8 P.M. (Leeds General Infirmary.) Dr. G. Steel : Theoretica andPractical Aspects of Therapeutic Nerve Blocking.

Thursday, 3rdROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS5 P.M. Professor Platt: Structural and Functional Adaptation

in Renal Failure. (Second of two Lumleian lectures.)ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS

5.30 P.M. Sir Charles Symonds : Intracranial Thrombophlebitis.UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

5 P.M. (Radcliffe Infirmary.) Dr. T. N. MacGregor : Significanceand Mechanism of Menstruation. (Litchfield lecture.)

ROYAL SOCIETY OF MEDICINE8 P.M. Section of Neurology. Dr. J. St. C. Elkington, Prof. R. H. S.

Thompson, Dr. W. B. Matthews : The Peripheral Neuro-pathies.

ROYAL ARMY MEDICAL COLLEGE, Millbank, S.W.15 P.M. Prof. M. L. Rosenheim : Treatment of Hypertension.

ROYAL EYE HOSPITAL5.30 P.M. Miss M. Savory : Detachment of the Retina.

ASSOCIATION OF CLINICAL PATHOLOGISTS4.30 P.M. (City Council Chambers, Portsmouth.) Opening

scientific session of three-day meeting. -

MIDLAND MEDICAL SOCIETY8.15 P.M. (Birmingham Medical Institute, 154, Great Charles

Street, Birmingham, 3.) Mr. W. H. Bond : Oral Cancer.

Friday, 4thROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS

5 P.M. Sir James Learmonth : After Fifty-six Years. (ListerOration.)

ROYAL SOCIETY OF MEDICINE5.30 P.M. Section of Anœsthetics. Prof. R. J. S. McDowall:

Asphyxia and the Electrolyte Balance.INSTITUTE OF DISEASES OF THE CHEST AND INSTITUTE OF

CARDIOLOGY5.30 P.M. (London School of Hygiene, Keppel Street, W.C.I.)

Mr. Norman Barrett : Injuries to the Heart.BUBENICS SOCIETY

5 P.M. (26, Portland Place, W.1.) Dr. J. A. Fraser Roberts :Genetics of Mental Deficiency. (Galton lecture.)

SOCIETY OF ANÆSTHETISTS OF SOUTH WALES 7.30 P.M. (Cardiff Royal Infirmary.) Anaesthetic films.

WHIPPS CROss HOSPITAL MEDICAL SOCIETY, Whipps Cross Hospital,E.ll

8.30 P.M. Dr. Joan Taylor : Diarrhoeas of Bacterial Origin.

EMERGENCY BED SERVICE.—In the week ended last

Monday applications for general acute cases numbered 1100.The proportion admitted was 89-75%.

Notes and News

NATIONAL FORMULARY, 1952

A NEW edition of the formulary is published this week.The notes for prescribers have been expanded by the additionof further monographs, and a pharmacological classificationwill now help the prescriber to recall those preparations whichhave similar actions or contain a particular drug. The list of

approved non-proprietary names and their equivalents will beparticularly useful in saving time and confusion. The generalsection of the formulary has been rearranged with Englishheadings to the subsections, but the Latin names are retainedfor the individual formulae. Prescriptions with no pharmaco-logical justification have been dropped, but this principle hasbeen waived in favour of some traditional and popularmedicines. Doctors may miss some old friends, but they are,of course, in no way restricted to preparations in the formu-lary. The changes make it better than ever. The publishersare the British Medical Association and the PharmaceuticalPress, 17, Bloomsbury Square, London, W.C.1, and the price is4s. 9d. post free or 7s. lid. post free for an interleaved copy.

B.M.A. IN THE MIDDLE EAST

DOCTORS from as far afield as Bahrein and the Lebanonassembled in Bagdad for the annual meeting of the MiddleEast Branch of the British Medical Association on March 4and 5. Sir John Troutbeck, the British Ambassador, recalledthat Bagdad was once the centre of the medical world ;and " those who are Scotsmen among you may think that it

might still be so today if its place had not been usurped byEdinburgh." The medical profession in Iraq had been builtup in the closest association with the British, and the growinginternational importance of the Iraqi medical professionand of the Royal Medical College in Bagdad was clearlyevident. The Ambassador was followed by Sayyid MajedMustapha, the minister for social affairs, and Prof. Hashimal-Witry, dean of the medical faculty.The scientific proceedings were opened by Prof. F. A. R.

Stammers (Birmingham), who spoke on Fluid, Crystalloid,and Protein Balance m Surgery. Dr. F. Akrawi, professorof venereology at Bagdad, discussed bejel, which is a

treponemal disease resembling syphilis, endemic in some partsof the Middle East. Clinically, bejel resembles syphilisexcept for the absence of the primary sore, the rarity orabsence of neurovisceral complications, and doubt about itshereditary transmission. Professor Akrawi regards bejel assyphilis modified by the conditions under which it exists.A lecture on W.H.O. in the Middle East, by Dr. W. H.

Crighton, public-health administrator for the Eastern Medi-terranean Regional Office of W.H.O., was followed by adiscussion in which Dr. W. H. Ford Robertson (Beirut)suggested that insufficient attention had been given to mentalhealth in the Middle East, and Prof. A. M. Critchley (Bagdad),hon. secretary of the Middle East Branch of the B.M.A.,declared that the W.H.O. services for acquiring and impartinginformation could be improved.

THE MEDICAL DIRECTORY

THE two volumes of The Medical Directory 1952 follow thepattern of last year, but the number of medical practitionerslisted has increased by 2174 (making a total of 81,846), thenumber of pages by 56, and the price by 9s.

University of CambridgeThe honorary degree of sc.D. is to be conferred -on Sir

Gordon Gordon-Taylor.Dr. V. B. Wigglesworth, F.R.s., has been appointed Quick

professor of biology.Dr. Wigglesworth, who is 52 years of age, was educated at Repton.

In 1917 to 1918 he served in France with a commission in the RoyalField Artillery. On demobilisation he entered Caius College,Cambridge, of which he was a scholar. In 1922 he held a FrankSmart studentship at Caius College, and in 1926 he graduatedB.CHIR. from St. Thomas’s Hospital. The same year he wasappointed lecturer in medical entomology at the London School ofHygiene, and in 1936 he became reader in entomology in theUniversity of London at the school. In 1939 he was elected F.R.s.,and in 1944 he joined the ’Agricultural Research Council’s unit ofinsect physiology at Cambridge as director. He also holds a reader-ship in entomology in the university and a fellowship at CaiusCollege. His published work includes, besides many papers oncomparative physiology, two monographs on insect physiology.

1. London : J. & A. Churchill. 1952. Pp. 2824, £3 12s.