October 13, 1898] 



NATURE 



577 



admitted, more suited to the practitioner or advanced 

 student, forms the prelude to a medical curriculum. The 

 actual need for an opening address on medical education 

 is really somewhat less than would be thought, since the 

 " Student's Numbers " of the Lancet or British Medical 

 fournal contain usually all that can possibly be said in 

 the way of general advice to the student, and these every 

 student or his parents read. This fact, doubtless well 

 known to those giving the addresses, is perhaps one 

 explanation of the varied subject-matter which October 

 after October gets worked up and delivered as introduc- 

 tory addresses. What is in a name ? Whether the 

 introductory address benefits the first year's student or 

 not, it at any rate forms an excuse for a batch of interest- 

 ing dissertations, which have at this season of the year, 

 when returning from holiday and bent on work, an effect 

 both stimulating and refreshing. Stimulating, because 

 from these addresses we get glimpses of the varied 

 character and enormous e.xtent of the undiscovered 

 country, which lies open to the scientific explorer ; re- 

 freshing, because we get a few tastes, as it were, of the 

 fruit of the promised land. 



The address of addresses this year was Prof. Virchow's, 

 which was printed fully in these columns last week. 

 The Mason College, Birmingham, was fortunate in 

 having Prof. Michael Foster as lecturer. The subject 

 chosen was the nature and function of a university. 

 Prof. Foster has a high ideal of what a university ought 

 to be, and, in view of the formation of a Midland Uni- 

 versity, indicated at Birmingham, what should be the 

 aims of those entrusted with the foundation of this 

 University. It is a relief to-day, when universities are 

 rather apt to be regarded as exammation-framing and 

 ■degree-giving machines, to hear an eloquent voice 

 raised which emphasises the value to the medical 

 student of research and individual laboratory super- 

 vision, as being not only the best but in the long run the 

 quickest way of teaching him the way to think, and thus 

 attack the problems which the future practice of his 

 profession will present to him. 



Mr. Turner, in his inaugural address at St. George's 

 Hospital, directed the attention of his audience to, per- 

 haps, a less ideal, but nevertheless an important sulsject. 

 Mr. Turner contends, as many have done before, that the 

 profession of medicine is not rewarded proportionally to 

 its merits. Distinctions are cateris paribus conferred less 

 readily on medical men than on members of the legal or 

 clerical profession. Further, authors have done a wrong 

 to the medical profession on many occasions by distort- 

 ing in fiction and elsewhere its characteristics. This, no 

 doubt, is very true ; but one is thankful that it is fast 

 disappearing. That those in authority are not, or rather 

 were not entirely to blame for these grievances is 

 also equally true. The emergence of medical prac- 

 tice from crude empiricism to its present-day condition, 

 demanding on the part of the medical unit higher intel- 

 lectual faculties, as opposed to mere memory, which bring 

 in their train an increased appreciation of the aesthetic, 

 will certainly remedy the social position of the rank and 

 file of the profession. The effect of this is already seen 

 in the increasing numbers of medical litterateurs of the 

 type of Oliver Wendell Holmes, and medical authors. 

 Mr. Turner rightly not only indicated the disease, but 

 suggested a remedy. While deprecating any attempt at 

 organisation allied to trade unionism, he exhorted his 

 hearers " to make by force their merit known," and culti- 

 vate amongst themselves an esprit de corps which wpuld 

 essentially overcome whatever obstacles it encountered. 



A practical medical subject was the text of Dr. Caley's 

 address at St. Mary's Hospital— prevention in medicine. 

 Dr. Caley contended that to whatever extent the science 

 of hygiene might develop, the actual prevention of 

 disease will also depend upon the rank and file of the 

 medical profession and the public. Some interesting 

 NO. 151 I, VOL. 58] 



points were brought out in this address with regard to 

 some of Dr. Sidney Martin's researches on the effect of 

 organically polluted soil on the retention of vitality by 

 the typhoid bacillus. In the case of virgin soil inoculated 

 with the bacillus, no signs of vitality were found after 

 fourteen, twenty, or twenty-three days ; in the case of 

 polluted soil, the bacillus was thriving at the end of 

 seven months. Dr. Caley emphasised the importance to 

 Great Britain as a colonising power of the prevention of 

 malarial fevers, and noted with satisfaction that, thanks 

 to the new army medical regulations, a better class of 

 army medical oflficer will be forthcoming. The lecturer 

 further considered the application of prevention to tuber- 

 culous disease, and in this connection referred to the 

 results of the Royal Commission on Tuberculosis and 

 the recent French Tuberculosis Congress. 



An important point in Dr. Voelcker's address at the 

 Middlesex was the caution which he gave to students as 

 to how they spoke of medical matters in lay circles. This 

 might have been extended, as there can be no doubt of 

 the incalculable harm that may be done by a student or 

 doctor who is not possessed of tact. The public as a 

 rule lose no time or spares no pains in making the most 

 of what has the material in it of a medical scandal. In- 

 cautious students have before now doubtless unwittingly 

 been sources of great mischief. 



At the Royal Free Hospital, Dr. Walter Carr dis- 

 coursed upon " Fashion in Medicine." Bleeding 

 naturally found a place amongst the historic medical 

 fashions, as also did the administration of calomel. Two 

 present fashions in medicine were, according to Dr. Carr, 

 the anti-toxine treatment and the treatment by animal 

 extracts. At the close of the address he touched, 

 appropriately to his audience, upon the future of the 

 medical woman. He rightly urged the necessity of 

 keeping up the standard of the medical woman, and 

 gave a note of warning with regard to the possibility of 

 the success, which had finally attended the movement, 

 producing a less valuable individual. 



The Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain had the 

 fortune to be addressed by Sir James Crichton Browne. 

 Sir James pointed out that the examination of chemists 

 and druggists ought to proceed on different lines to that 

 of medical students in that the former were, as a rule, 

 earning their livelihood by more or less manual service 

 all the time they were in statu pupillari. Sir James dis- 

 cussed the sale of poisons and the possibility of new legis- 

 lation upon this subject in the immediate future. The 

 average poisoner, according to the lecturer, takes but 

 little advantage of the recent discoveries of science. In 

 this connection he pointed out the popularity of arsenic, 

 which was used by Wonderton in his attempt, in 1384, 

 to poison Charles VI. of France and the Dukes of 

 Valois, Berri, Burgundy, and Bourbon. This drug was 

 also the basis of the "manna" of St. Nicholas of Bari, 

 and TofTania of Naples, which caused the deaths of 600 

 persons. In Sir James' experience no medical poisoner 

 has ever used a drug outside Schedule A of the Poisons 

 Act. From this circumstance the lecturer drew an 

 interesting inference — viz. that medical poisoners, so far 

 from being intellectual villains, were as a rule dull and 

 stupid to a degree, since much more deadly and much 

 less easily detectable substances lay to their hand, if 

 only they would take the trouble to find them and be 

 original. They are, in fact, another instance of intellec- 

 tual incapacity being associated with moral debasement. 

 The lecturer then entered upon the subject of disease 

 toxines and allied bodies, and pointed out how in all 

 probability the poisoner of the future would avail him- 

 self of this class of poison. In conclusion, the effect of 

 anti-toxines in the prevention of the sequel* of the in- 

 fective diseases was pointed out ; and basing his observ- 

 ations . upon the dictum of Sir William Gull, that a 

 patient took ten years to recover from an attack of 



