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EARLY FOG.
EARLY FOG. of the Model Rules for Administration of Medical Benefit, which were published immediately after the Regulations, and which will be found in full in another column of this issue. It is now generally admitted that the Government will increase the amount of money available under the Act for the provision of medical benefits, but we have no official information as to what actual sum of money will be available, or what increase in the flat-rate that
1025
the issue
Annotations. °‘ Ne
quid nimis."
EARLY
FOG.
AMONGST the undesirable legacies which an excessively wet summer threatens to leave us is fog. The past week has furnished premonitory symptoms, and the coming winter sum will meet. With regard to the latter point, a probable will serve as a severe’ test of the contention that zeal in figure has been widely circulated in the lay press, presum- smoke abatement has iri recent years shown signs of bearing ably upon good authority, but we have no further knowledge fruit. The metropolis during the last few winters has been on the matter. comparatively free from the classic or I I pea-soup " variety We. are not aware whether the British Medical Association of fog, and we trust that this freedom will continue when has received any communication from the Government on meteorological conditions are otherwise unfavourable. With these conditions constantly changing in the winter months this subject or whether the report upon the Regulations, the formation of mist is, of course, inevitable, and it is now awaited from the State Sickness Insurance Committee unpreventable by known agencies, but human effort can of the Association, will be able to take note of anything do much to stop the contamination of this mist with further than the actual document embodying those Regula- injurious and irritating products which arise out of crude tions, with the gaps in the schedules still left unfilled. methods of firing. It is evident on all sides that But it is upon this report that the future action the gas fire is steadily replacing the coal fire for both of the medical profession, as represented by the British cooking and warming purposes in the domestic household, and as further economies are effected in the production of Medical Association, must largely depend. The report gaseous fuel, and in the methods of burning it, we may of the State Sickness Insurance Committee will require expect a far cleaner, if at times misty, air in London endorsement by the Council and the Representatives, and during the see-saw conditions of winter weather. Methods the decision of the Association cannot, we under- of gas-firing have long been under a stigma owing to the stand, be made before the third week in November. defective and extravagant stoves which have been placed It is possible that by that date the blanks in the schedules upon the market. The neglect to study the essential conditions under which gas could be utilised for warming the will be duly filled up, so that a concrete proposal house in a healthy and satisfactory way resulted in a public will be before the Representative Body, even if it has not prejudice which has been difficult to remove. Excellent been before the State Sickness Insurance Committee. We progress has now been made. Stove-makers have found out continue to hope, in accordance with previous views ex- that the defective article does not make for the success of pressed on the subject, that room will be found for further their business, and the great gas companies have realised negotiations with the Government, and no doubt the Repre- the necessity for a thoroughly scientific appreciation of the involved in gas-firing. The result is that domestic sentatives will to some extent be impressed not only by the problems heating by means of gas appliances is being approached on obvious fact that concessions have been made to medical right lines and with a success from a hygienic and economic opinion, but by their knowledge of how far the Public standpoint which is rapidly removing the reproach which Medical Service, to be instituted by the British Medical existed against such a system in former times. As this Association, promises to fulfil its objects and to receive the progress continues we may hope that the movement in favour of smoke abatement will realise its aims. necessary support. The services rendered by the British Medical Association to the profession during the long course of resistance to SUSHRUTA SAMHITA1 (THE COMPENDIUM OF the
measure have been very large. No one can doubt that without such resistance the medical profession would
have found its one.
position under the
Act
If the Association should
an
now
extremely painful
decide to continue
with the Government with
a view to placing negotiations its organisation-of course with proper safeguardsat the disposal of the Insurance Commissioners, a long battle may yet be decided in an honourable manner between two parties, neither of whom can be said to have absolutely vanquished the other. Signs, however, of willingness to negotiate are as yet few and far between, while the number of medical men resigning club appointments which they at present hold is growing very large. The intention of medical men not to work the Act is clearly very general. A most grave responsibility consequently is thrown upon the
State Sickness Insurance Committee and the Council of the British Medical Association, for upon them devolves the
duty of indicating, the
course
to be
at any rate in the first
pursued
shall be.
instance,
what
SUSHRUTA). Sushruta was a Hindu surgeon who lived in a very early His work as it exists in Sanskrit is a recension by Nargajuna, a writer who is placed, by a consensus of Western opinion, in the first quarter of the third century B.C. Unfortunately, there still exists very great uncertainty with respect to the absolute and even the relative dates of the earliest Indian physicians and surgeons. According to the Indian medical tradition, the knowledge of medicine had a two-fold origin. On the one hand, it was delivered by the god Indra to the sage Bharadvaja, and by him to Atreya ; on the other, it descended from Indra to Dhanvantari, Dr. A. F. R. Hoernle disand from him to Sushruta. cusses the chronology of the subject in his work on the "Medicine of Ancient India," and cites a signifi, cant piece of evidence contained in the " Atharva Veda"" as bearing on the very early date of both Atreya and Sushruta, whom he regards as co-itemporaries. age.
1 Sushruta Samhita. An English Translation based on the original Sanskrit text. By Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishnagratna. In three volumes. Published at 10, Kashi Ghose-lane, Calcutta. Price 15 rupees (£1) per volume, or 25 rupees the set. Vol. I.
1025
the issue
Annotations. °‘ Ne
quid nimis."
EARLY
FOG.
AMONGST the undesirable legacies which an excessively wet summer threatens to leave us is fog. The past week has furnished premonitory symptoms, and the coming winter sum will meet. With regard to the latter point, a probable will serve as a severe’ test of the contention that zeal in figure has been widely circulated in the lay press, presum- smoke abatement has iri recent years shown signs of bearing ably upon good authority, but we have no further knowledge fruit. The metropolis during the last few winters has been on the matter. comparatively free from the classic or I I pea-soup " variety We. are not aware whether the British Medical Association of fog, and we trust that this freedom will continue when has received any communication from the Government on meteorological conditions are otherwise unfavourable. With these conditions constantly changing in the winter months this subject or whether the report upon the Regulations, the formation of mist is, of course, inevitable, and it is now awaited from the State Sickness Insurance Committee unpreventable by known agencies, but human effort can of the Association, will be able to take note of anything do much to stop the contamination of this mist with further than the actual document embodying those Regula- injurious and irritating products which arise out of crude tions, with the gaps in the schedules still left unfilled. methods of firing. It is evident on all sides that But it is upon this report that the future action the gas fire is steadily replacing the coal fire for both of the medical profession, as represented by the British cooking and warming purposes in the domestic household, and as further economies are effected in the production of Medical Association, must largely depend. The report gaseous fuel, and in the methods of burning it, we may of the State Sickness Insurance Committee will require expect a far cleaner, if at times misty, air in London endorsement by the Council and the Representatives, and during the see-saw conditions of winter weather. Methods the decision of the Association cannot, we under- of gas-firing have long been under a stigma owing to the stand, be made before the third week in November. defective and extravagant stoves which have been placed It is possible that by that date the blanks in the schedules upon the market. The neglect to study the essential conditions under which gas could be utilised for warming the will be duly filled up, so that a concrete proposal house in a healthy and satisfactory way resulted in a public will be before the Representative Body, even if it has not prejudice which has been difficult to remove. Excellent been before the State Sickness Insurance Committee. We progress has now been made. Stove-makers have found out continue to hope, in accordance with previous views ex- that the defective article does not make for the success of pressed on the subject, that room will be found for further their business, and the great gas companies have realised negotiations with the Government, and no doubt the Repre- the necessity for a thoroughly scientific appreciation of the involved in gas-firing. The result is that domestic sentatives will to some extent be impressed not only by the problems heating by means of gas appliances is being approached on obvious fact that concessions have been made to medical right lines and with a success from a hygienic and economic opinion, but by their knowledge of how far the Public standpoint which is rapidly removing the reproach which Medical Service, to be instituted by the British Medical existed against such a system in former times. As this Association, promises to fulfil its objects and to receive the progress continues we may hope that the movement in favour of smoke abatement will realise its aims. necessary support. The services rendered by the British Medical Association to the profession during the long course of resistance to SUSHRUTA SAMHITA1 (THE COMPENDIUM OF the
measure have been very large. No one can doubt that without such resistance the medical profession would
have found its one.
position under the
Act
If the Association should
an
now
extremely painful
decide to continue
with the Government with
a view to placing negotiations its organisation-of course with proper safeguardsat the disposal of the Insurance Commissioners, a long battle may yet be decided in an honourable manner between two parties, neither of whom can be said to have absolutely vanquished the other. Signs, however, of willingness to negotiate are as yet few and far between, while the number of medical men resigning club appointments which they at present hold is growing very large. The intention of medical men not to work the Act is clearly very general. A most grave responsibility consequently is thrown upon the
State Sickness Insurance Committee and the Council of the British Medical Association, for upon them devolves the
duty of indicating, the
course
to be
at any rate in the first
pursued
shall be.
instance,
what
SUSHRUTA). Sushruta was a Hindu surgeon who lived in a very early His work as it exists in Sanskrit is a recension by Nargajuna, a writer who is placed, by a consensus of Western opinion, in the first quarter of the third century B.C. Unfortunately, there still exists very great uncertainty with respect to the absolute and even the relative dates of the earliest Indian physicians and surgeons. According to the Indian medical tradition, the knowledge of medicine had a two-fold origin. On the one hand, it was delivered by the god Indra to the sage Bharadvaja, and by him to Atreya ; on the other, it descended from Indra to Dhanvantari, Dr. A. F. R. Hoernle disand from him to Sushruta. cusses the chronology of the subject in his work on the "Medicine of Ancient India," and cites a signifi, cant piece of evidence contained in the " Atharva Veda"" as bearing on the very early date of both Atreya and Sushruta, whom he regards as co-itemporaries. age.
1 Sushruta Samhita. An English Translation based on the original Sanskrit text. By Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishnagratna. In three volumes. Published at 10, Kashi Ghose-lane, Calcutta. Price 15 rupees (£1) per volume, or 25 rupees the set. Vol. I.