;V>1 MEDICAL SECTION 



Dr. Johnson, " there is nothing but tenderness and 

 pleasure," may coincide with the commencement of 

 ante-natal life. Ignorance is c:countable for many of 

 the reproductive disasters which immediately follow 

 marriage, and project their baneful effects far on into 

 later life- ignorance, and its ally, excess. There are 

 also advances to be made in the sphere of medicine 

 and midwifery ; the lives of many unborn infants may 

 yet be saved by the discovery of better methods of 

 treating the many diseases of pregnancy, which, while 

 carrying danger to the woman herself, also bring 

 risks to the new being in her womb. There is, for 

 instance, the vaccination of expectant mothers during 

 a smallpox epidemic, not only for their own sakes, but 

 for the protection of their unborn infants. These, 

 however, are purely medical or obstetrical questions, 

 and I need not dwell on them here, beyond stating 

 that they are of great importance, and that they 

 cannot be properly faced without pre-maternity 

 wards. 



DISCUSSION. 



Dr. SALEEBY (London) said that it was his privilege to 

 be resident to the maternity ward at Edinburgh when the 

 pre-maternity ward was started they began with a single 

 bed and increased and there was no question but that the 

 results had been simply glorious. He thought that Dr. 

 Baliantyne's remarks on syphilis ought to be registered in 

 some way by the Congress. It was simply extraordinary 

 the way in which the public mind would persist in ignoring 

 it. A simple illustration of this attitude had just occurred 

 to him. He had a wire asking him to write an article on 

 the International Medical Congress, and he devoted half or 

 more of that article to the question of syphilis, as he wanted 

 to back up the proposal for a Royal Commission, and the 

 whole of the article dealing with this was cut out. The 

 other day Sir Thomas Barlow wrote demanding that there 

 should be a Royal Commission on the subject, and yet the 

 Press would not have it mentioned in their columns. That 

 was the kind of thing they had to fight against, and they 

 ought certainly to send a resolution to the Press dealing 



