August 3, 1905] 



NA TURE 



331 



and Greek; his Gray's 'Anatomy,' perchance, in front of 

 hini, his Latin dictionary on one side, and his Greel^ 

 lexicon on the other. The student, too, must, not begin 

 to spepialise too soon; he wants a liberal education, an 

 education for its own sake. This goes when the technical 

 education begins — that is, when he leaves school or college 

 to learn to be a ' doctor.' " . _ 



Dr. Henry Maudsley delivered an address on medicine, 

 present and prospective, in which he discussed preventive 

 'medicine, heredity in disease, &c. He sounded a note of 

 warning with regard to our present sanatorium treatment 

 of tuberculosis which may be quoted : — " But is phthisis 

 so very curable In these special hospitals, nowise endued 

 with any special grace, I imagine, by reason of their being 

 called sanatoriums? Adequate statistics are not yet avail- 

 able, but thus far the modest outcome of experience seems 

 to be that many patients who are sent in the early stage 

 of the disease recover, if they are kept long enough; that 

 most of those in a more advanced stage improve while 

 there, frequently relapsing afterwards ; and that those who 

 are badly diseased ought not to be sent at all. Is that, 

 after all, to say much more than might be said of sensible 

 treatment before the erection of sanatoriums? 



" Can we, again, eliminate the predisposing influence of 

 heredity? .\ctual tubercle may not be inherited, but the 

 poor constitutional soil inviting and suiting the bacillus 

 still passes from parent to child ; and we do not get rid 

 of the essential fact by changing the name. Do we, 

 indeed, in the end get such a valuable addition to the life- 

 capital of the nation? It is easy enough, noting that some 

 (10,000 consumptives die annually in Rngland and Wales — 

 I do not vouch for the figures — fancifully to rate the value 

 of each life at an arbitrary figure and then by multiplica- 

 tion to make an appalling computation of the loss to the 

 community; but is the loss so real? Might not the ulti- 

 mate cost to the commonwealth be greater were these 

 persons to go on living and breeding in it? An addition 

 to the nation's life-capital is all very well, but the quality 

 of the capital counts for a good deal, and it will not count 

 for much if it is not realisable. What does the realisation 

 amount to in practice? The patient who comes out of the 

 sanatorium recovered or improved must usually go back to 

 his former work and surroundings ; he cannot adapt the 

 world to the weakness of his nature and its ideal needs, 

 but, like other mortals, must adapt himself to the rude 

 world and perforce do much as they do. That is what he 

 quite naturally does ; returns to his work and his old 

 ways, perhaps gets married if he is not married, and 

 begets children who can hardly have the confidence of a 

 good descent. Meanwhile, when he relapses, he sows 

 bacilli broadcast, thus multiplying such life-capital to fulfil 

 its ordained function in the universe, that apparently 

 being to. make away with weak mortality." .. 



The address in surgery by Mr. C. J. Bond, surgeon 

 to the Leicester Infirmary, dealt, with ascending currents 

 in mucous canals and gland ducts. The 'results of a 

 number of experiments proved that by sonle nieans or 

 other, and under certain conditions, particles of an in- 

 soluble substance, such as indigo, inserted into the orifices 

 of a mucous canal or duct are conveyed along the mucous 

 channel in a reverse direction to that taken by the con- 

 tents of the tube, or by the secretion or excretion of the 

 glands along siich ducts. . The conditions which seem to 

 favour this passage are — some interference with the 

 normal flow of the contents of the mucous tube or duct ; 

 some arrest or diversion of secretion, such as is produced 

 by a fistulous opening, though it is by no means necessary 

 that this should be complete! 



In the section of medicine an interesting discussion on 

 the treatment of sleeplessness was opened by Sir Lauder 

 Bruntoh. Many of the speakers dwelt on the 'importance 

 of indigestion and of high arterial tension in inducing 

 sleeplessness, and Dr. Collier (Oxford) considered that 

 much of the present day insomnia might be referred to 

 ovet^-education, especially in preparing for scholarships, the 

 successful competitors often sdffering after the age of nine- 

 teen yekrsi'frbm nervous failure, and insomnia. He thought 

 that the occasional employrn'ent of narcotics was of value 

 in, breaking a vici-ous circle before the habit of sleeplessness 

 was established. . '■ '' ': 



In the section of State medicine an important discussion 



NO. 1866, VOL. 72] 



on hospital isolation was introduced by Dr. George Wilson 

 (Warwick), who stated that the deductions he would bring 

 forward were the outcome of thirty-two years' experience. 

 With, regard to . small-pox isolation, he contended for a 

 special block .at the general infectious hospital, and, in his 

 opinion, there was very littl'e'. risk of the spread of infec- 

 tion. With regard to scarlet fever, he stated that hospital 

 isolation had failed in reducing, the incidence and mortality 

 of the disease. He was also sure that it .did not cause 

 the presence of the milder form of the infection, and was 

 strongly in favour of separate isolation rather than aggre- 

 gation in large wards. 



Several speakers considered that hospital isolation for 

 scarlet fever was a failure, and a resolution was adopted 

 requesting an inquiry by the Local Government Board into 

 the subject. 



In the section of industrial hygiene the subject of 

 physical deterioration naturally attracted a good deal of 

 attention, and an important discussion was introduced by 

 Dr. Daw-^un Williams (London), who, by means of several 

 tables illusli.iiiiiL: a ^iries of observations on the height and 

 weight ol hiiv^ in [irimary schools, showed that after the 

 eighth year of age the weight of boys of the artisan 

 classes was very much below the average, this fact being 

 more noticeable in the lowest grade schools. The same 

 remarks applied to the height of boys, though in a less 

 degree. The first striking statement about physical 

 degeneration was made some years ago by Mr. J. Cantlie, 

 who challenged any person to produce a Londoner of the 

 fourth generation. This challenge had never been 

 answered. Dr. Dawson Williams attributed this physical 

 deterioration to various causes, among which he mentioned 

 — improper feeding in infancy ; the fact that among the 

 poorer classes mothers worked hard alinost up to the time 

 of their confinement ; intemperance in fathers, which was 

 said bv French authorities to be more injurious to the 

 children than maternal intemperance ; and the practice of 

 large numbers of children in London sitting out of doors 

 until midnight, which involved a great expenditure of 

 nervous energy. 



Mr. William Hall (Leeds), in a paper on the influence 

 of environment on physical development, said that fifty 

 years ago the slum mother was much more sober, cleanly, 

 and domestic than she was to-day. .She was better 

 nourished herself, always suckled her children, and after 

 weaning them gave them nutritious bone-making food, 

 which she prepared at home. This had all been done away 

 with by our elaborate education system, costing 20,000,000/. 

 yearly. Children were now fed on cheap stale food, well 

 seasoned with condiments, which educated them for the 

 love of stimulants in later life and produced also a tendency 

 to scurvy, rickets, and purpura. A little while ago he had 

 examined Tiiore than 100 adult skeletons in the crypt of 

 Hythe Church, where they had lain for several centuries. 

 He was, struck by the fact that the bones were small but 

 not rickety, the bony palates not much vaulted and the 

 alveolar arches regular, and the teeth that remained were 

 good. It had been said truly that there were hundreds 

 and thousands of our countrymen now living whose 

 skeletons, if preserved, would some day show highly 

 vaulted bony palates, contracted alveolar arches, anterior 

 protrusion of the upper jaws, the remains of unsound 

 teeth, and abundant general signs of rickety bony frame- 

 work. It was remarkable that Jewish children in the 

 slums were superior to Christian children in physical 

 development, which was due to the fact that the pregnant 

 Jewess was better cared for, that go per cent, of the 

 infants were fed on breast-milk, and that during later 

 childhood they were abundantly fed on bone-making 

 material. Eggs and oil, fish, fresh vegetables, and fruit 

 entered largely into their diet. Vet the Jews had not been 

 taught to safci^ii.inl ilnir piryn.uit wives and to nourish 

 their growing 1 hihli'ii li\ ilir instructors in the modern 

 and costlv St.ii( nliM.ili.in wlii. h ihey were told at Oxford 

 was to be at the root of everything. . ■ 



Prof. R. J. Anderson (Queen's. College, Gahvay) re- 

 marked that he ■ thought it would be a most important 

 thing to secure a complete anthropometric survey of the 

 whole . of the, British Isles. He, doubted if improper food 

 was the chief cause of physical. deterioration, because, in his 

 opinion, food had of late years greatly improved in quality. 



