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effecting a considerable economy. During the period of theexhibition the committee were continually in receipt of con-gratulations on the excellence of their work, and the presenceof the British section was obviously appreciated in no smalldegree, as may be gathered from the fact that it was visited

by large t3rowds of visitors, among whom were the leaders ofthe various hygienic professions of practically every country.Numbers of experts paid repeated visits to the section.

The Finanoial Statement.The accounts of the committee have been audited by Mr.

F. W. Osborne, certified accountant. His statement is

appended below. As will be seen, the sum of £ 4784 14s. 6d.was subscribed by the public for the purpose of equipping thesection. Not allowing for certain receipts in respect of thesale of furniture, &c., the expenditure of the committee was4214 13s. 2d leaving a balance of 707 3s. 8d. Of thisbalance .e396 8s. have been returned to the guarantors, who,in response to a request, converted their guarantees intosubscriptions, and who have now received the sums thusgiven, back in full. A further balance remains of ;S310 15s. 8d.,of which a certain small sum will be required for thepurpose of winding up the business of the committee.The committee suggests that the ultimate balance, which

is estimated at .6275, should be devoted to a cause which ismost closely connected with the object for which the fundswere originally given. It appears to this committee thatsuch an object is the Parkes Museum of the Royal SanitaryInstitute. It is therefore proposed by the committee thatthe sum available be given to the Royal Sanitary Instituteon the condition that it be used for the improvement of theParkes Museum. This will be carried into effect if thesubscribers consent.

Thanks of the Committee to the Subscribers.In conclusion, the ,British Committee of the International

Hygiene Exhibition desire to express their best thanks to thegenerous subscribers, who have enabled them to carry outtheir task to the evident satisfaction of their German hostsand of the visitors to the exhibition."

Summary of financial Statement.We congratulate the committee on their public-spirited

action and practical success. They maintained the positionof this country as leaders in hygiene with a very insufficientbacking and an unfortunate lack of official support. It is

unnecessary to publish the vouched account of receipts andexpenditure"alluded to as "appended below," as a brief state-ment will cover all the ground. The committee received alltold just short of 5000. Some .E660 were returned to the Iguarantors or remain as balance. The expense of maintain-

ing the pavilion, including cost of building electric and waterinstallation, electric fittings, furniture, decorations, lighting,cleaning, attendants’ wages, &c., was .e1305 10s. 3d. The

management expenses, including salaries, clerical and generalexpenses, printing, stationery, postages, telegrams, travellingexpenses, cost of appeal, and charges incurred in Londonoffice amounted to 2151 16s. 8d. The exhibits’ account,including show cases, stands, insurance, transport and pack-ing, was .e757 6s. 3d. The small balance is accounted for bywinding up expenses.

THE WEST AFRICAN MEDICAL STAFF:AN INTERESTING DINNER.

THE winter dinner of the West African Medical Staff tookplace on Friday last, Jan. 19th, at the Trocadero Restaurant,London, when there was a large gathering of the past andpresent members of the staff.

Dr. W. T. Prout, C.M.G., of the Liverpool School ofTropical Medicine, late principal medical officer of the WestAfrican Medical Service, presided, and the guest of the

evening was the Right Hon. L. Harcourt, Secretary ofState for the Colonies. Other guests were : Sir Ronald Ross,K.C.B.; Mr. A. Fiddian, Mr. W. A. Robinson, and Mr.D. L. H. Baynes, of the Colonial Office ; Mr. KennethMillican, of the staff of THE LANCET ; Major C. H. Armitage,C.M.G., D.S.O., Chief Commissioner, Northern Territories,Gold Coast; Mr. R. H. Maude, Solicitor-General of the GoldCoast; Dr. A. E. Cooper ; and Staff-Surgeon H. Hunt, R.N.The senior members of the staff present included Dr. R. M.

Forde, principal medical officer, Sierra Leone; Dr. P. J.Garland, C. M. G., late deputy principal medical officer, GoldCoast; Dr. E. H. Tweedy, deputy principal medical officer,Gold Coast; Dr. F. Manning, deputy principal medicalofficer, Northern Nigeria ; Captain W. H. G. H. Best, pro-vincial medical officer ; and Dr. St. George Gray and Dr.W. F. Macfarlane, senior medical officers.

After the toast of the King had been duly honoured, thechairman called upon Dr. Langley Hunt, who was leavingthe staff, to propose the toast of prosperity to that staff.

Dr. LANGLEY HUNT said that it would be a difficultmatter to over-estimate the importance of the West AfricanMedical Staff as a factor in the civilisation of the colonies

concerned, and it was only those who had come into closecontact with the natives who could realise the value of gain-ing their confidence. He looked upon the staff as a most

important asset in the development of West Africa, and hewas certain their influence would increase, and that theywould continue to maintain the high reputation which theyhad earned.

Dr. PROUT, in proposing the health of their distinguishedguest, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and their otherguests, said that he felt it was almost an impertinenceto attempt anything in the way of a speech in thepresence of one who was accustomed to the flightsof oratory which he was credibly assured was the dailynutriment of the House of Commons. They welcomedthe Secretary of State not only as the head of theColonial Office, but because they recognised in him the actualhead of the West African Medical Staff-the final arbiter towhom all questions connected with their profession on thecoast must finally be referred, and by whom they must bedecided. It was a source of gratification to them that hehad found time, amidst the many claims of a busy officiallife, to show his appreciation of their work by honouringthem with his presence there. It would be an act of pre-sumption on his part to attempt to refer to the multifariousduties and responsibilities of a Secretary of State for theColonies, but there was one direction which closely affectedthem-namely, the attitude which a Colonial Secretary mighttake up towards the great question of medical research andtropical hygiene ; and it was a matter for congratulation thatthey had had at the Colonial Office a succession of statesmenwho had fully realised the vital importance of putting thesematters in the foreground. He had himself been associatedfor over 25 years with the tropics, and had seen a greatchange come over the attitude of the public and ofthe official mind. Formerly tropical diseases were regardedwith a species of fatalism, which was possibly largely due tothe lack of knowledge of their causes. But now, owing to theadvances of tropical research, it was realised that diseases inthe tropics were as preventable as those in temperate climates,while it was essential for the economic development andfuture civilisation of the colonies that they should first bemade healthy. And among those who had had the privilegeof administering the colonies no one had shown a greaterinterest in all questions of medical research, had givengreater encouragement to tropical sanitation, and had showna more sympathetic appreciation of the work of the medicalprofession than the present Secretary of State for theColonies. He (the speaker) had had, as a member of theAdvisory Committee to the Colonial Office, many oppor-tunities of becoming personally acquainted with the keeninterest which Mr. Harcourt took in these matters, andwould instance as an example the Nyasaland Commissionon Sleeping Sickness, which was largely due to that gentle-

: man’s personal influence. It was often said that the ColonialOffice did not do enough and did not give enough money, but

i they must remember that behind them was a stern and in-exorable Treasury, from which it was much less easy to extract

’

money than, say, to extract a recalcitrant molar from the jawí of a negro ; and while they, like Oliver Twist, asked for more

they were grateful for what Mr. Harcourt had succeeded in!

doing. If he might for a moment be permitted to dream, heforesaw in the Advisory Committee to the Colonial Office thenucleus of a vast Imperial health organisation, with its

I headquarters in the seat of the empire, but with ramificationsextending all over the globe, reinforced by men of eminencein science in this country, and mainly staffed by those who

l had had a personal knowledge and experience of the

problems to be dealt with in the colonies. There would be

departments to deal with different diseases, to collect

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statistics, to collate information, and to stimulate research,and the health of that great Empire of which we are so

proud would be promoted. Dr. Prout concluded by alludingto the great work done by Sir Ronald Ross and bywelcoming the permanent officials of the Colonial Office,because unofficial meetings promoted good feeling and abetter understanding between those who worked abroad andthose whose work lay at home.

In responding to the toast of his health, the SECRETARY ofSTATE for the COLONIES said : " I esteem it an especial honourto be the guest of the West African Medical Staff, and I amdeeply grateful for the terms in which your chairman hasproposed this toast. Never since the days of Daniel hasthere been witnessed such an act of signal courage as thepresence at this moment of a Cabinet Minister at a dinner ofdoctors. Perhaps I ought to attribute the hospitableimmunity I have so far enjoyed to the fact that in WestAfrica-a land of ordinance rather than of legislation-thereis for the present at least no Insurance Bill. I forbear fromsketching for you the touching picture of a head of a housesticking stamps upon a missing card for an equally missingJimmy Johnstone, or a doctor under contract speeding downthe unfinished Bauchi line in a special to diagnose atin-miner for ankylostomiasis. But in all seriousness,and home politics apart, I wish to assure you of thegratification it is to me to have this opportunity ofexpressing to you, and through you to all your colleagues,my deep gratitude for, and high appreciation of, the splendidservices you are rendering in your exile to the cause ofhumanity and Empire. A Colonial Secretary, whatever histastes, however deep his ignorance, must, by his daily experi-ence and anxieties, become a medecin malgre lui.’ I do not,however, admit myself to be wholly an ignoramus. It hasbeen one of my relaxations in life-I do not say it as com-mendation to you-to have been in medicine a judiciousmixture of the quack, the empiric, and the amateur. You

will, no doubt, after such a description wonder why I have notlong ago appeared before the coroner. The reason is that inthe last resort my valour has been so subject to my discretionthat in anything more serious than a common cold I havegenerally sought the advice and paid the fee of thosewho are qualified to give the one and receive the other.

Perhaps I may be permitted the harmless gratificationof saying in my own justification that I was one ofthe first, is not the first, now thirty years ago, to experimentwith the leaves of Erythroxylon coca (then a little knownplant obtained for me from South America by the Editor ofTHE LANCET), and with the tincture. I myself made thecocaine, to procure, I believe for the first time, the completeand rather alarming anaesthesia of the throat and eye. If Icould have retained an exclusive knowledge of its effect onthe vocal cords, how much trouble and suffering I mighthave saved by its secret administration in my present pro-fession to opponents and colleagues.

But, gentlemen, I am not going to inflict anything on youin the way of a speech ; this is only the exordium to animminent peroration. I said just now that in the ColonialOffice one must be, or ought to be, Moli6re’s involuntaryphysician.’ I say this because perhaps the saddest incidentsof an anxious day are the telegrams which pour in on mefrom all quarters of the globe of yellow fever here, plaguethere, blackwater fever somewhere else, malaria almost

everywhere, sleeping sickness in ill-defined and, I fear,extending regions. There is pathos, as one of your colleagueshas written in Lyra Nigeria,’ in the-

Thought of the workers of yesterday,The men on whose bones we build.

And there is a sardonic truth in his picture of life on thecoast as-

The woof of farce, together boundBy warp of grimmest Tragedy.

I wish that by my words to you to-night I could bring hometo the rest of you who are fighting the great fight in theswamps, the jungle, and the desert, that we, who live athome in so-called ease, chained to an administrative desk,are not unconscious and not unmindful of the hopes, thefears, the struggles, and the triumphs of the pioneers oftropical medicine. As the area of research broadens whileit concentrates, your opportunities for distinction andachievement extend with the painstaking record of receptiveand perceptive minds. If Condy’s fluid could make Colon into

a sanatorium, there should be no limit to your aspirations. Iam comforted and consoled by the thought that there is inyour pursuits, what is essential to a Briton, an element ofsport. Foxes may be scarce and hounds deficient, but youcan always pursue the stegomyia of yellow fever to its earthin a jam-pot, or have a drive of mosquitoes to be decimatedwith a syringe. I am not sure that your colleagues in CentralAfrica may not have to become big game hunters if Glossinamorsitans is going to affect the vices of its degeneratebrother palpalis.

If I talk lightly after dinner of these incidents, do notimagine that I take anything but a serious view of yourdifficulties, your duties, and your prospects. If it were notfor my official position I should tell you that as a privateindividual I consider you to be miserably underpaid, butdepartmentally I avoid any further reference to the stipendyou are willing to accept. This at least I will say, that theinsufficiency of the material rewards you reap seems to haveno discouraging influence on the efficiency of your service. Youhave some experimental advantages and opportunities of prac-tical research which are denied to your stay-at-home col-leagues. You are occupying one of the actual fields on whichthe battles of new methods are being fought and their resultstested. In the domain of pure medicine I suppose that itwould be true to say that, apart from synthetic drugs, notrue prophylactic has been discovered since Jesuit’s bark

developed into quinine. But the work on other lines ofPasteur, Koch, Almroth Wright, Sir Ronald Ross, and RubertBoyce-though not commanding by any means universal assent-has opened new avenues of fruitful inquiry and fertilehopes. It may not be what Sir Benjamin Brodie once called. ideal chemistry,’ but it is full of possibilities which maystir the imagination of the most phlegmatic. It is true thatmuch caution is required lest the latest hypothesesshould be too readily accepted as postulates, but nearly allgreat discoveries have advanced through the experimentaladoption of unproved-sometimes unprovable-assumptions.You are, by the locality of your practice, specially interestedin the study, the treatment, and the cure of yellow fever. Ishould share the usual and proper fate of amateurs if Iventured upon the dangerous discussion of the differentiationof yellow fever from bilious remittent as distinguished byblack vomit, or if I trenched upon the speculation as tosemi-immunity derived from adolescent and unrecognisedattacks. I only mention these doubts and discussionsbecause I am sure we all feel that all avenues of

possible progress should not be closed by prejudice or

prejudgment. ’

Research is not an end-it is only a means. But it is truethat it is also one of the pleasures of life to him who knowshow to pursue it. The pursuit of truth-even when unsuc-cessful-has given happiness to generations of great scientists ;its attainment is the golden crown reserved for the very few.If a time came when all was known, when investigation andexperiment were at an end, half the pleasure and profit oflife would have died with the knowledge. We may remainhappy, then, in the anticipation of the possession of know-ledge yet unwon. The questioning of Nature, the causes ofdisease, the problems of life and death, will last as long asthe generations of mankind. I apologise to you for theexcursions of an ignoramus. They have been made not asthe speculations of a, thinker, but to try to show you that inall that concerns your great profession, in the services yourender, in the results you attain, you have a true friend andwell-wisher in Downing-street. "

Sir RONALD Ross also briefly responded, and said thatprogress in tropical sanitation was now really going ahead.It generally took about ten years before any new discoveryin medicine was accepted, and it was just over ten yearssince the transmission of malaria was definitely explained.He thought that though the Americans had done much in theway of the application of tropical sanitation, England, whichwas first in the field, still showed the way in tropicalresearch and medicine. He was sure that a new era was

dawning for West Africa, and he was confident the WestAfrican Medical Staff would do all in their power toforward it.

Dr. FoRDE then proposed the health of the chairman, whosuitably responded, after which an adjournment was made tothe ante-room, where the Secretary of State took the oppor-tunity of making the personal acquaintance of members ofthe staff.