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NATURE 



[August 13, 1903 



resulting from the reorganisation of the university by 

 Carl Friedrich, and the work done by the scientific men 

 of past generations, and has indicated how it hopes 

 that, in the century just begun, the development will 

 not cease but continue, that new successes will be 

 achieved by the more and more unrestrained unfolding 

 of all intellectual forces, and that these successes may 

 help to brighten the minds of the people, and to con- 

 nect them more and more by the bridges of science, 

 notwithstanding political boundaries. M. W. 



BRITISH MEDICAL ASSOCIATION SWANSEA 

 MEETING. 



THE seventy-first annual meeting of the British 

 Medical Association was concluded at Swansea 

 on July 31. It will be remembered that last year the 

 meeting was held at Manchester, and although as 

 was a priori to be expected the numbers at Swansea 

 fell short of those at Manchester, yet nevertheless the 

 meeting will always live in the memory of those who 

 attended it as an unqualified success. 



The president this year was Dr. Griffiths, of Swan- 

 sea, and in an excellent opening address he touched 

 upon many points of interest and importance both to 

 the profession and to the public. Not the least interest- 

 ing of these to the readers of Nature was the presi- 

 dent's reference to the much discussed question of 

 hospitals for paying patients. Sooner or later the very 

 serious attention of the profession, and most probably 

 also of the Government, will have to be directed to this 

 question. An increasing number of patients requiring 

 skilled medical or surgical treatment, such as they 

 cannot obtain at their own homes, is occurring among 

 a class the financial position of which, while being 

 such as to render them the unethical recipients of 

 charity, yet nevertheless is not adequate to meet tne 

 charges of private nursing homes. From the point of 

 view of the economist, it seems truly absurd that this 

 class cannot be catered for. 



Another point of interest in the president's address 

 was the repetition of the great want of complete re- 

 modelling of the Public Health Government Depart- 

 ment. The need for something in this country corre- 

 sponding to the German Gesundheitsamt has from 

 time to time been emphasised in these columns. 

 Numerous departmental committees appointed by 

 various departments, the minutes of reference to which, 

 however, have all borne directly upon the public health, 

 have embodied in their reports a specific recommend- 

 ation to this effect. Stress has also been laid upon the 

 inadequacy of the present Governmental machinery for 

 dealing with the important questions which modern 

 technical industry and knowledge, using these terms in 

 the widest sense, are apparently intermittently, but 

 actually constantly, forcing into public hygiene. The 

 policy adopted by the different departments of State 

 concerned has heretofore been one of empirical oppor- 

 tunism. When a question has been sufficiently acute 

 a Departmental Committee has been appointed and a 

 report of this kind issued, often after considerable lapse 

 of time; with the exception of notices at the time of its 

 appearance in the Press, this report and its recom- 

 mendations are often never heard of again. This 

 policy, although it may have the effect of saving the 

 salaries of permanent officials, cannot in the present 

 state of the question continue long, and we are pleased 

 to see that it was brought prominently before the 

 greatest professional organisation which exists, viz. the 

 British Medical Association. 



The address in medicine was delivered by Dr. F. T. 

 Roberts, the subject chosen being infective and in- 

 fectious diseases. The lecturer dealt chiefly with the 



NO. 1763. VOL. 68] 



influence which new scientific method has exercised 

 upon the diagnosis and treatment of disease. The 

 scientific methods considered were essentially those 

 which have been introduced as a result of increased 

 knowledge of pathology, comprising under this term 

 chemical pathology and bacteriology. These sciences, 

 true to their name, have been without doubt most 

 ancillary to medicine, but their very helpfulness may 

 in itself be a source of danger in so far as concerns 

 the progress of our knowledge of the treatment and 

 diagnosis of disease. These new methods have a 

 tendency, according to the lecturer, to be studied and 

 pursued at the expense of the purely clinical ones. 

 Students, in short, are apt to spend too much time in 

 the laboratory and too little in the wards. An interest- 

 ing part of the address was devoted to the question of 

 the use of alcohol as a therapeutic agent; in this con- 

 nection we heartily recommend the remarks of the 

 lecturer to all interested in this question. There can 

 be no doubt that under certain conditions therapeutics 

 possesses no more valuable agent; most clinicians, as 

 the result of their experience, are enabled to maintain 

 that numerous lives have been saved by the skilful 

 administration of alcohol; but, on the other hand, it 

 is equally true that the seeds of future intemperance 

 havenot infrequently been sown by the indiscriminate 

 and indefinite instructions, or rather want of instruc- 

 tions, which often accompany the ordering of alcohol 

 by the practitioner of medicine. Too much care can- 

 not be exercised in the prescribing of a remedy so potent 

 both for good and evil. 



The address in surgery was delivered by Prof. Mayo 

 Robson, who took lor his subject the evolution of 

 abdominal surgery during the last third of a century. 

 The address practically confined itself to the enormous 

 development which has taken place in this branch of 

 the healing art during the above time. In conclusion, 

 the lecturer remarked that the future progress of 

 surgery will probably be intimately bound up with the 

 work of the physician, the pathologist, and the bacteri- 

 ologist, and the time will come when preventive 

 measures will save much operative work. 



Much good work was done at the meetings in the 

 different sections, though apparently no papers of very 

 striking original interest were co'mmunicated. The 

 social arrangements left little to be desired, the pro- 

 fession at Swansea and the neighbourhood extending 

 a very hearty welcome to the visitors. Many, no 

 doubt, made "the Association meeting at Swansea the 

 starting point of their holidays, and we have little 

 doubt that the mental food ingested there will in many 

 cases be assimilated on the charming holidav grounds 

 of Wales. F" W. T. 



VENTILATION OF FACTORIES AND 

 WORKSHOPS.^ 



ABOUT three years ago. Lord Ridley, when Secre- 

 tary of State for the Home Department, 

 appointed a committee consisting of Dr. J. S. Haldane, 

 F.R.S., and Mr. E. H. Osborn, engineering adviser 

 to the Chief Inspector of Factories, to inquire into and 

 report upon the means of ventilation in factories and 

 workshops, with especial reference to the use of fans 

 and the use and construction of respirators for the pro- 

 tection of workpeople exposed to dust or dangerous 

 fumes. 



In the report before us- the committee deals with a 

 portion only of the question upon which it was 

 directed to make inquiry. It is for the present 

 mainly concerned in the attempt to strengthen the 



1 "First Report of the Departmental Committee appointed to inquire 

 into the Ventilation of Factories and Workshops ; with Appendices." 

 (London : Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1903.) 



