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and particularly in private practice. He emphasised thenecessity of using the drug in a freshly prepared form.-Dr. HAULTAIN had used l-200th of a grain of scopol-amine with l-6th of a grain of morphine during thefirst stage, when patients were often too ready to cryout for relief. Its effect lasted about from five to seven

hours, and it had the advantage that during the secondstage, if the pains were very severe, then a very small quantityof chloroform was required to relieve them. On several occa-sions he found the effects pass off and that when the secondstage came on the patient exaggerated the suffering. Inseveral cases the condition of the child gave very greatanxiety when the dose mentioned above had been given, andhe found it difficult to resuscitate the infant. If -the childwas born within two hours no results were evident, or afterfive hours when the effects had passed off, but it wasbetween these times that he had met untoward results.He considered the drug of the very greatest value in

helping suffering women.-Dr. ELSIE M. INGLIS had ex-

perience of its use in 43 cases, giving it in doses of1-100th grain of scopolamine and 1-4th grain of morphine,repeated if necessary in three hours. It was useful in caseswith a very prolonged first stage ; these mostly endedwith chloroform administration in the second stage, andshe had also found that much less was then required.She had noticed rapid dilatation of the os under its influence.- Dr. J. HAIG FERGUSON had found it inconstant in its action,or this might have been due to idiosyncrasy of the patient.He used 1-100th grain of scopolamine and l-6th grain ofmorphine, repeating the same dose of scopolamine ifnecessary without the morphine. As the patient was not soconscious of the pains then, these cases required morecareful attendance of the medical man. One patient hadexpressed herself to the effect that she had some feeling ofpain but in a far-away manner, as if the pains were in theother side of the room. He had found as much thirst fromlarge as from smaller doses. It was useful in cardiac casesand where one had to hasten labour.-Sir HALLIDAY CROOMreplied.

ROYAL ACADEMY OF MEDICINE INIRELAND.

SECTION OF STATE MEDICINE.

Physical Deterioration.—The General Ancesthetics Bill.A MEETING of this section was held on April 30th, Dr.

W. R. DAWSON, the President, being in the chair.Mr. J. B. STORY read a paper on Physical Deterioration.

He said that there were no means of ascertaining withperfect certainty whether the population was physicallydegenerating or not. No statistics were available in theUnited Kingdom on this point. But it was known thaturbanisation was increasing, and plenty of evidence existedto show that this tended to physical degeneracy. In

support of this German statistics were quoted. Atten-tion was called to the reports of three ParliamentaryCommissions—(1) Interdepartmental on Physical Degene-ration ; (2) a Royal Commission, Physical Training, Scot-land (1903) ; and (3) the recent Poor-law Commission.The first recommended a permanent anthropometric surveyof all children and young persons, methodical physical1instruction in all schools, and compulsory drill and physicalexercises for all growing lads; the second made almost’identical recommendations ; and the third, in a majorityreport, stated that the most effective and thorough methodof infusing into boys approaching adolescence a sense ofdiscipline and self-restraint, both physical and moral, and ofimproving their physique for subsequent industrial occupa-tions, would be a universal system of a short period of- military training. Mr. Story commented upon the utterlack of any systematic physical education in Irish schoolsand made the following recommendations which were after-wards adopted by the meeting :-1. That a permanent;anthropometric survey should be made of children andyoung persons. 2. That physical drill should be com-

pulsory, in conjunction with a proper system of medicalinspection, in all schools, primary and secondary. 3. Thatall boys between the ages of 14 and 18 who were physi-cally fit should be compelled to belong to boys’ brigadesor cadet corps or to attend classes where physical drill of a

military character was conducted. 4. That all youths at theage of 18 years (rich and poor) who were physically fit shouldbe compelled to undergo a period of military training.-Dr.N. MCI. FALKINER spoke from personal experience of thevalue attaching to boy scouting. Apart from the question ofa territorial army military training would be in every way anadvantage.-Professor E. J. McWEENEY said he became con-vinced of the great utility of compulsory military trainingwhen living in Germany. The lack of coordination was verymarked in this country and far too many of the children ofthe poorer classes were allowed to wander about thestreets to acquire an anti-social character of mind andto feel themselves as outside the scheme of things. TheGerman system impressed him with the feeling of solidarity.-Surgeon-General BOURKE spoke of his experience of militarytraining. There was a great difference between squads thathad only a few days’ service and those that had longerperiods. He could assure them that even three months madea decided improvement, and the Swedish system had beenfound to be of great advantage.-Dr. R. B. M’VITTIE

thought that the teeth were, perhaps, the most importantindication of degeneration. He could not see how a

man was going to stand hard work if he had not

good opposing molars. It had been shown that 86 percent. of the children in schools in Great Britain hadvery bad teeth, and he thought the figure showedthat the race was degenerating at a rapid pace. Ifthere was to be more prolonged physical drill it should beunder the control of the medical profession.-Mr. M. J.NOLAN spoke of the good results of the Swedish system inhis asylum in Downpatrick.-The PRESIDENT said he hadbeen converted to the doctrine of compulsory militaryservice by a residence in Germany. The great advantage ofearly training was that it got a boy at the stage when hecombined the self-indulgence of the child with some of theforce of a man. It was a critical stage, and drill would bethe salvation of the young men of the country.-Mr. STORYreplied.

Dr. T. P. C. KIRKPATRICK read a paper dealing with theGeneral Anæsthetics Bill now before Parliament, in thecourse of which he opposed the proposed exclusion of dentistsfrom the ranks of the anaesthetists. In his opinion thecourse of instruction laid down for dental students of the

Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland was quite sufficient topermit the dentists of the future to be entrusted, with

perfect safety to the public, with the important duty ofadministering anæsthetics.—Dr. J. CRAIG said that Dr.

Kirkpatrick stood almost alone in his defence of the dentistswho were not also registered medical practitioners.

GLASGOW MEDICO-CHIRURGICAL SOCIETY.-Ameeting of this society was held on May 7th, Dr. J. WalkerDownie, the President, being in the chair.-Dr. W. R. Jackread notes of a case of Tuberculosis of the Bladder treated byVaccine Therapy. The patient was a young woman, aged32 years, a teacher by occupation. She had suffered from

frequency of micturition with scalding pain for four years.The attacks came on acutely and passed off after varyingintervals. In May, 1908, the urine was acid, of specific gravity1020, and contained albumin and pus. Tubercle bacilli were

readily detected in the sediment. On cystoscopic examina-tion tuberculous ulceration was found in the trigone of thebladder and in the neighbourhood of both ureters. Dr. J. H.Nicoll removed the right kidney, the pelvis of which wasfound to contain a uric acid calculus coated with phosphates.Scattered tubercles were found through the cortex. The

right ureter was swollen and gelatinous. Convalescencewas uninterrupted. The attacks of pain recurred and inJanuary, 1909, cystoscopic examination proved the ureteralorifices to be normal, but adjacent to the right orificewere one or two small white tubercles and two flatyellowish ulcerated surfaces, with rounded margins andevidently tuberculous. The patient’s index to the tuberclebacillus was 0 68. On Jan. 22nd 0-0006 milligrammeof Koch’s bacillary emulsion was injected. A few hoursof meatal and hypogastric pain followed. The indexfell to 0 - 60, but rose steadily to 0.88 on the 24th and1-08 on the 28th, and 1 - 10 on the 31st. The frequency ofmicturition greatly diminished and pain disappeared. OnFeb. 2nd O. 0001 milligramme was injected. The index didnot rise beyond 1’06. After the injection of 0 - 00012 onFeb. 14th the index fell to 0-81 and rose to 1 - 34. Some

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injections of a vaccine grown from a pure culture of bacilluscoli found in the pus were also given and effected a markeddiminution in the quantity of pus. Examination at this

stage failed to discover tubercle bacilli in the urine and thesymptoms steadily improved.-The President read notes

of a case of Epithelioma of the Naso-pharynx treated byRadium. The symptoms were severe frontal headache andinability to breathe through the nose. Both nares werefound filled with pus. The naso-pharynx was almost com-pletely filled with a new growth, a piece of which wasremoved and was found to be a cellular epithelioma. Opera-tion was refused and radium was tried. A small quantityof bromide of radium was passed into the naso-pharynxthrough the inferior meatus. It was at first left in for 15minutes, but later was left in for an hour each day.After a week the patient could draw air through the noseand the headache was less severe. After six weeks of thistreatment the tumour had entirely disappeared. He returnedagain, however, with symptoms of intracranial tumour, fromwhich he died.-The President also reported three cases ofPrimary Epithelioma of the Uvula. Each tumour wasremoved with scissors, cutting away a considerable piece ofthe soft palate round the tumour. One case died ten yearsafter from a malignant tumour in the right posterior triangleof the neck. There was no recurrence in the throat. Thesecond case’returned four years after with a scirrhous cancerof the left tonsil, with involvement of the cervical glands,which with the tonsil were removed.-Dr. A. A. Gray showedstereograms illustrating Normal and Pathological Conditionsin the Middle and Inner Ear.-Dr. J. Wyllie Nicol showed aNew Form of Test-tube. The open end was inclined at anangle of about 450 to the length of the tube for the purposeof facilitating dropping in fluids, as strong nitric acid, froma bottle.

Reviews and Notices of Books.Mendel’s Principles of Heredity. By W. BATESON, M.A.,

F.R.S., Professor of Biology in the University of Cam-bridge. Cambridge : At the University Press. 1909.

Pp. 396. Price 12s. net.

Professor Bateson’s admirable book puts out in the

- clearest possible manner the whole story of Mendelism uptp the present hour, and we say up to the present hourbecause work upon Mendelian lines, having for its objectthe making of the study of heredity into an organisedbranch of physiological science, is now being undertaken byso many capable experimenters in so many different fieldsof research that it is not necessary for Mendelism to mean

’the same thing, as far as detail is concerned, for more thanan hour together. The principles, however, it must be

,assumed, will not vary, for if they do all the interestingwork that is being done for the development of their appli-cation and in accordance with their promise would thusbecome meaningless or misleading.Most of us now know the curious story of Gregor Mendel,

the Abbot or Pralat of the Konigskloster in Brunn, who read’in 1865 to a local scientific society two papers upon planthybridisation, the result of experiments carried on in thegardens of his institution, and there and then founded a-school of research which had no scholars for 35 years,but which is now gaining adherents rapidly. Mendel’swork was published in the Transactions of the Brunn

Scientific Society, and in that form probably reached ourRoyal Society and Linnean Society,, among other learnedbodies. It attracted, however, no attention, which, as Pro-fessor Bateson shows in his biographical notes upon Mendel,was all the more extraordinary, because the researches-and conclusions were germane to controversies and discussionswhich happened to be at that very time occupying theminds of several naturalists of the first rank. The work ofthe Pralat of Briinn, however, went unnoticed, to be redis-covered in 1900, some 16 years after his death as an unappre-ciated and disappointed man. In 1900 three papers appeared

within a few weeks of each other giving the substance ofMendel’s theory and experiments as displayed in his com-munications to the Brunn Society, and confirming the con-clusions arrived at in certain directions from independentinvestigations. From that time forward, mainly owing tothe enthusiasm of Professor Bateson, labour upon Mendelianlines has been undertaken with steadily increasing frequency,so that the fundamental question which medical men areasking-viz., Is there any practical value in the work

to us ?-must soon receive a definite answer, because the

various scattered investigations will, or will not, groupthemselves into a scientific exposition of some of the laws ofheredity, and success or failure can be tested with an

approach to certainty. Many allow that the Mendelianshave got so far already that they have placed the study ofheredity upon a definite scientific basis as a branch of

biology, and Professor Bateson brings forward a large amountof evidence to prove this ; but whether he succeeds or nois for the time being of small importance. What is of

importance is that these interesting researches should bepursued till a reasonable time has come at which we may askthe Mendelians for light and leading based upon their work.That time has not yet arrived. The work is in its infancy,or to be accurate it has just reached its teens, and it is tooearly to worry about its character or to take stock of its

achievement. It is unwise to assume too much for a youthfulprodigy, and unfortunately it is easy to stunt or delayyouthful growth by neglect. Let us do neither. We are

not called upon to be credulous and we must pray to be

delivered from an unreasoning scepticism ; the right attitudeis surely to resolve to give every chance to the new school ofthought.There is one thing that we are entirely tired of hearing

and that is that the pursuit of Mendelian doctrines is a

denial of the truth or value of the immortal work of Charles.

Darwin, and we agree with Professor Bateson’s belief that ifMendel’s work had come into the hands of Darwin the

history of the development of evolutionary philosophy mighthave been very different, for it is certain that the presencewould have been admitted of variations occurring as discon-tinuous phenomena. Many mighty Darwinian conceptionswere so certainly true, so positively explanatory of muchthat had hitherto been puzzling, and so full of promise inmany directions, that almost immediately after their publi-cation special experiments in the science of genetics ceasedto take place, or at any rate ceased to be carried on by manymen of science. The scientific world agreed to accept in itsentirety and without controversy the doctrines of pureselection, so that those who were engaged upon theexamination of individual and discontinuous phenomena,were made to feel that they were simply wasting theirtime. It is impossible to conceive an attitude of mind

that would have been more positively distasteful to

the great Darwin himself than to have all individual

experimentation directed towards the support of any theory;but undoubtedly this is what occurred, and because of thiscomparatively little systematic work has been done in thestudy of genetics. Mendelism, therefore, when re-discoveredin 1900 had a practically clear field, and Professor Bateson’sbook describes the progress that has been made, and thedirections in which future effort is intended. " For a

period," he says, ’’ we shall perhaps do well to direct oursearch more especially to the immediate problems of geneticphysiology, the laws of heredity, the nature of variation, thesignificance of sex and other manifestations of dimorphism,willing to postpone the application of the results to widerproblems as a task more suited to a maturer stage. Whenthe magnitude and definiteness of the advances alreadymade in genetics come to be more generally known,