4i8 



NA TURE 



[March 6, 1902 



■ivill receive a large measure of support, at least in many 

 cases, from those locally interested in them, and accom- 

 modation for infectious diseases other than small local 

 isolation hospitals is dealt with out of the rates. I'rom 

 this it follows that of any subscription given according 

 to Mr. Coleridge's lines, little more than one-half will be 

 devoted to what the average charitable man regards as 

 the essential function of a hospital, viz. the treatment of 

 acute medical and surgical disease and the rendering 

 of the unfortunate subject of it capable of returning to 

 earn his, and very often his family's, daily bread. We 

 think it would have been fairer and of more real help to 

 the charitable layman whom this pamphlet pretends 

 to guide had these considerations been clearly set forth. 

 Let him, then, now clearly understand that had he followed 

 Mr. Coleridge's advice durmg, for instance, the year 

 1900, to which the figures in their entirety apply, and 

 specifically stated that his money should goto no hospital 

 connected with vivisection, practically half of it would 

 have been "diverted" from the legitimate object of his 

 charity. 



To pass to a question which certainly does not possess 

 the merit of novelty, viz. the so-called diversion of 

 hospital funds to the medical schools attached to them, 

 we would simply repeat what we have said before, that 

 this is no diversion at all, no more diversion than the 

 salary paid to a hospital gate-porter. The " managers" 

 of the large hospitals are shrewd business men, we think 

 more shrewd even than Mr. Coleridge, and they know full 

 well that the efficacy of a large general hospital depends 

 inter alia upon there being a medical school attached 

 to it? The clinical teachers, demonstrators and students 

 tend the sick and teach the nurses, thus securing efficient 

 ones ; the more purely scientific departments of the school 

 help, each using the methods in which they are in- 

 dividually expert, in the elucidation of those obscure cases 

 often demanding the technique of all. By these means 

 the physician or surgeon becomes possessed of a know- 

 ledge of facts enabling him to adopt lines of treatment 

 which mitigate pain, minimise the havoc of disease, and 

 not seldom actually save life. Under the present regirne 

 these services are rendered by the medic.U schools gratuit- 

 ously : sums granted towards the maintenance of these 

 schools cannot be said to be diverted from the use of the 

 sick ; the sick get the full benefit of them. 



If we now turn to Mr. Coleridge's impugnment of 

 King Edward's Hospital Fund Committee, we shall arrive 

 at some interesting deductions from the figures pro- 

 vided for our enlightenment which were not pointed out 

 by the author. Mr. Coleridge has noted the fact that the 

 allocation of the hospital fund grants per bed was greatest 

 in the case of the hospitals possessing medical schools, 

 and thus lalwratories. In the case of the other hospitals, 

 those which had upon their staff viviseclors received 

 larger grants than those entirely unconnected with vivi- 

 section. Post hoc proptei- hoc, in other words. Lord 

 Lister especially, and his colleagues to a less degree, 

 have wilfully used King Edward's Hospital Fund for the 

 purpose of endowing vivisection. 



It is certainly to be assumed that King Edward's 

 Hospital Fund was not intended for the endowment 

 either of lunatic asylums or homes for the incurable, or 

 local cottage hospitals, or local isolation or small-po.x 

 hospitals, which certainly ought to be provided for out 

 of the rates. To no hospitals of this kind did the Com- 

 mittee, and we venture to think quite rightly, make any 

 grant. We do not mean for one moment to infer that 

 such institutions are not worthy of support, but the 

 ordinary subscriber to a hospital fund does not include 

 under that category either lunatic asylums or homes for 

 incurable or dying patients. If, however, we exclude 

 the above institutions from our calculations, how are 

 Mr. Coleridge's figures affected ? The facts are these 



hospitals with medical schools and laboratories attached 

 received 5/. 8j. <^d. ; hospitals with no medical schools, 

 l)ut connected in the special sense of the pamphlet with 

 vivisectors, 4/. 14^-. zd. ; and hospitals entirely uncon- 

 nected with vivisection, 5/. per bed. In other words, 

 while hospitals connected with medical schools received 

 by a sjnall amount the most per bed, those hospitals 

 which were entirely unconnected with vivisection received 

 more than those to the staffs of which so-called vivisectors 

 were attached. There is, therefore, so far as the grant per 

 bed is concerned, no ground for Mr. Coleridge's charges. 



If we look into the matter more minutely we shall see 

 that in the details of each hospital grant there is even 

 less reason tosuspei t that vivisection had anything what- 

 ever to do with it. If we compare the maximum grants 

 per bed in the hospitals as classified by Mr. Coleridge, 

 we shall find the largest grant of all hospitals connected 

 with vivisection laboratories was 8/., or approximately 8/., 

 per bed, given to Guy's, a hospital in need, of funds, and 

 one, of course, doing magnificent work. If we take two 

 hospitals entirely unconnected with vivisection, we find in 

 the case of the N.W. London Hospital a grant of 10/. per 

 bed, and in the case of the Royal Free Hospital a grant 

 of 9/. per bed. How can it be argued, in the face of these 

 figures, that preference was given to hospitals contiected 

 with vivisection qua vivisection? We do not wish to 

 impugn Mr. Coleridge's motives, but the ingenious way 

 in which he has attempted to mislead the charitable 

 layman by the pamphlet before us is, in our opinion, in 

 the highest degree reprehensible. 



The end of this document in which truth is so distorted 

 is devoted to a personal defamatory attack upon Lord 

 Lister. This attack, we are pleased to see, is somewhat 

 modified for the better since we last reviewed it ; con- 

 cerning it we must refer the reader to our former 

 article. The monograph concludes with an epilogue 

 consisting of a repetition of an invective, couched in Mr. 

 Coleridge's most offensive terms, against science, and 

 sounds like some papal bull of the middle ages anathema- 

 tising that knowledge w^hich was eventually to liberate 

 mankind from filth, superstition, suppression and 

 ignorance. Medical science, which perhaps has done 

 more than any agency under Heaven to alleviate the 

 sufferings of mankind, is ruthlessly termed "malignant." 

 Invective is not argument, neither is calumnious oppro- 

 brium logic. 



The charitable subscriber to London hospitals will see 

 to what "diversion" his subscriptions will be subject if 

 he follows the advice of Mr. Coleridge. It is to be hoped, 

 and indeed to be expected, that he will give as he has 

 done before, leaving the disbursement of his bequests to 

 representatively elected committees of experts who, neither 

 prompted by political motives nor influenced by mis- 

 placed and maudlin sentimentality, will assuredly allocate 

 them to the most urgent wants of the sick. 



THE PROPOSED BRITISH ACADEMY. 



THE following text of the petition presented to the 

 Privy Council by the council of the Royal Society 

 in favour of the establishment of a British Academy 

 appeared in the Times of February 27 :— 

 To THE King's Most Excellent M.mesty in Council. 

 The humble petition of the President and Council of the 



Royal Society. 

 Showeth— , • , . I, 



That your petitioners pray that the petition which has been 

 presented to His Majesty in Council praying for the grant of a 

 charter of incorporation to "The British Academy for the I ro- 

 motion of Historical, Philosophical and Philological Studies 

 be granted. , , r -^ 1 



Your petitioners are led to take this step both for the general 



that I taking Mr. c'oleridges remaining figures as correct) | reason that the granting of such a charter will, in their opinion, 

 NO. 1688, VOL. 65] 



