NATIONAL HEALTH.

1829 Arras, Angers, Besanoon, Caen, Clermont, Dijon, Grenoble, detailed and the prizes offered by it, amounting to nearly Limoges, Poitiers, Reims, Rouen, and Tours. In the former 60, are enumerated. The third part is concerned chiefly with the provincial students can study for the whole 16 terms of the curriculum, in the latter only for the 12 early terms, and in both cases the final examination must be taken before a faculty. There

universities and schools, and gives the various courses of lectures and practical work afforded in them. An interesting is a dean (doyen) at the head of each faculty who is appointed appendix to it gives brief details of foreign universities in by the Minister of Public Instruction for a period of which the French language is employed, including the three years, and is chosen from the titular professors. The Belgian universities of Brussels, Ghent, Liege, and

professoriate and agrégés.

is divided into two classes-titular

professors Louvain, the Universities of Geneva, Lausanne, Bucharest, appointed periods, and Jassy, and the Faculties of Medicine of the Laval usually nine years, but the period can be extended University in Quebec and Montreal. The fourth and by the Minister. They assist in the examinations, replace concluding part is specially addressed to the practitioner, the professors when they are absent, and give courses It opens with some general advice to those newly qualisupplementary to those of the professors. There are two fied concerning registration, starting in practice, provarieties of the diploma of Doctor of Medicine in France fessional secrecy, the signing of certificates, responsibility, The and the many difficult problems with which the professional -that of a university and that of the State. university diploma is open to foreigners; it is purely man may be called upon to deal. The various laws, rules, academic and is only of value as a scientific qualification. and regulations concerning medical practice are then It does not confer the right to practise or any other of the summarised, including special laws dealing with the pracprivileges of the State diploma. Certain regulations must tice of pharmacy and the supply of therapeutic serums and The various societies for professional be conformed to, certain examinations taken, and fees paid similar products. amounting to 1400 francs in order to obtain this diploma. assistance and protection are next described, with their For the State diploma the curriculum is four years, divided objects and aims. The concluding section is devoted to the into 16 terms. Various examinations have to be passed, a thermal stations and mineral springs of France and gives thesis written on some subject, and fees of 1390 francs paid. useful accounts of the chief features of these waters and the This part also contains information regarding the military, indications for their use. Le Progres Medical is to be connaval, and colonial medical services and the various associa- gratulated upon this very useful production ; it should be of tions of students both in Paris and elsewhere. great value to all people in this country who are interested The second part is devoted to the University of Paris, to in medical education in France and to those who propose the hospitals and institutions in that city, and to the various to pursue post-graduate or vacation courses of study in Paris medical societies. The Faculty of Medicine of the University or at any other of the great medical centres in France. The latter

for stated

are

founded in 1808 in succession to the Ecole de was itself the successor of the old Faculty of Sant6, Medicine suppressed in 1793 at the same time as the College of Surgery. Full information is given of the various courses of lectures to be given during the academic year 1908-09 and of the special courses to be held during the vacations. The various hospitals of Paris are described, the staff of each is given, and the courses of instruction and the clinical facilities afforded by each are set forth. A special chapter is devoted to the Pasteur Institute and Hospital. The institute is described and the nature of the work carried on there is briefly outlined. It is of interest to learn that since 1889 more than 1000 persons have attended the lectures and practical courses of microbiological technique, while nearly an equal number have attended the lectures only, showing what an important part the institute has played as an educational body as well as a home of research. A special chapter is devoted to the consideration of the preliminary scientific education of the medical student who has to produce a certificate of having passed the P. C. N. of Paris

was

which

(i.e., physics, chemistry,

and natural

liminary year is under the control of

history). the Faculty

This preof Science.

The four dental schools in Paris are next described. The dental course extends over three years and the examinations are carried out by the Faculty of Medicine. The fees vary from 1000 to 1500 francs and the examination fees amount to 250 francs. The second part is brought to a close by an

interesting

account of the various medical societies.

The

constitution of the well-known Academy of Medicine is

Annotations. "one quid nimis."

NATIONAL HEALTH. ON Dec. llth the third annual meeting of the National League for Physical Education and Improvement was held in the Jerusalem Chamber adjoining the south side of Westminster Abbey under the presidency of the Bishop of Ripon. His lordship, in moving the adoption of the and the accounts, said that the object of the league report to make was people as physically "I fit" as possible. It had lately been realised that the mind could not be properly educated unless the body was so too. By means of proper care and forethought much infantile mortality might be prevented. The Lord Mayor, who seconded the motion, said that unless they began with the child they would never teach the alphabet of regeneration. A pure milk supply was of the most vital importance. He was going to do all he could to make his year of office a children’s year. The report and accounts were adopted, the former containing a recommendation that Poor-law authorities should be granted powers to acquire farms in Canada and other suitable site? in the empire. The Archbishop of Canterbury said that they could not separate man into two parts. Both the physical and the spiritual sides must be dealt with. It was often asked why the legislature did not do something, but the legislature had done its part, it was owing to the apathy of the public that so little had been done. The meeting then terminated. For our part we think that the problems which the league has set itself to solve are among the most

1830 difficult of those many problems which confront us to-day. The solution of them, not only in this country but in every modern civilised country, lies at the very root of the modern industrial system. It involves questions of child labour, of the labour of parents, of the labour of women in mills and factories, of proper housing, and of provision of playgrounds. To solve the problems will require a system of national self-denial and of a real public spirit which at present seems to be absent. But the first step to the solution of any problem is the wish to solve it and it is cheering to find that the National League has at least got so far on its toilsome journey.

citizens are free to heap up mountains of brick and mortar, of stone and iron....... in order that they may swell an overfull pocket, the poor wayfarer must walk up and down like a pigmy at the bottom of a sightless airless tank." He might almost have written of certain streets "a septic tank," for the living bacterial population of narrow thoroughfares which are never exposed to the antiseptic rays of the sun must be inconceivably great. We can only hope that the widening of streets will in some measure keep pace with the upward growth of the buildings which bound them, and that our building laws may forbid in perpetuity the appearance in any British town of such a skyline as appears to be inseparable from the great business centres of America. If a A LONDON WORTHY AND TALL BUILDINGS. John Stow redivivus were to cross the Atlantic we fear that THE Clarendon Press has issued recently a reprint of ’’ The even the full-flavoured breadth of the Tudor vocabulary Survey of London," made long ago by John Stow, the would fail to do justice to his emotions on approaching famous Tudor tailor. It forms an archaeological document New York. of exceptional interest to all who feel any curiosity conREGISTERED MEDICAL WOMEN AND THE cerning the development of the greatest city that the world POLITICAL FRANCHISE. has ever seen. Mr. Charles Whibley bases an article in the December number of the National Review on this fascinating ON Nov. 2nd a committee of the Association of Registered volume and calls attention to Stow’s great antipathy to tall Medical Women of the United Kingdom wrote to the Prime buildings. He lived in an age when the timber houses Minister asking for an opportunity of laying before him which were destined to be swept away by the Great Fire certain facts in favour of the extension of the political This suffrage to women. were replacing many of the older stone buildings. The request was supported by the were to the more in that men not Stow results of an inquiry which showed that of all the registempted pleased rear their wooden structures high up into the air. Not tered medical women resident in the United Kingdom 538 only did he inveigh against the iniquity of those who built" were in favour and 15 against the extension. The 16 signapresumptuously, but he quoted two "awful examples" tories to this communication included Mrs. Garrett Anderson, Alder- M.D., Dr. Sophia Jex-Blake, Dr. Julia Cock, Dr. Jane H. of the fate which would surely overtake them. man Angell Dune, who set a high brick tower upon Walker, Mrs. Mary Scharlieb, M.D., Mrs. Florence N. Boyd, his house, was struck with blindness and unable to gaze M.D., and Dr. Louisa B. Aldrich-Blake. Mr. Asquith, in his upon his handiwork, and Richard Wethell was punished reply, expressed his interest in the figures submitted to for the same offence by becoming in short time so tor- him and requested the association to make its representamented with goutes in his joynts, of the handes and legges, tions in writing, as he regretted that pressure of public that he could neither feed himself, nor goe further than he business would prevent him from receiving a deputation was led, much lesse was he able to climbe, and take the of medical women. On Dec. 10th the same ladies, with pleasures of the height of his Tower." The object of these the addition of three others, forwarded a memorandum lofty houses seems to have been a display of importance. At to Mr. Asquith in support of their claims. We are that period they were certainly not erected with the aggres- unable to print the document in full in this issue but sive motive which inspired the architecture of so many summarise its arguments, which, we may mention, are medifeval Italian towns and which was, of course, the expressed in studiously temperate language. The associadesire of every family of consequence to possess a vantage tion claims that : 1. Legislation not infrequently deals with ground from which its members could shoot down upon their matters directly concerning medical practitioners, and the neighbours’ houses in times of civil feud. Bologna and interests of all such practitioners should be protected by San Gimignano, to name only two towns, have many the vote. 2. Medical women are a tax-paying and selfbeautiful examples of such towers still standing. Neither supporting body and afford a striking example of taxation can their motives have been those which have led to the without representation, which is opposed to the first erection of such "skyscrapers"as disfigure New York principles of English liberty. 3. Many medical women are city of to-day. Although many Americans of a3sthetic graduates of a university and as such are entitled to the sense would perhaps gladly inspire the streets of their university franchise, a privilege from which they have been metropolis with something of the Tudor spirit, and share excluded by an arbitrary decision. 4. Members of the the pious assurance of John Stow that the sins of all modern medical profession are called on to perform services .children of Babel will be visited upon their bodies, there of an arduous and responsible nature to their fellows and to give skilled advice to the State but receive can be no doubt that the tall city building has come to stay. The voteless position Modern economy of ground-space in cities and concentration no recognition of these services. of women make this fact and London is of business interests practitioners apparent, especially anomalous, as they to insistent comto its - streets architecture is fast responding possess legal power deprive men of their right to vote by mercial necessity. In a recent annotation we called atten- signing certificates of insanity. 5. Work amongst all classes has tion to the fact that a man who lives at the top of given medical women an especial insight into the disabilities from which their sisters suffer through lack of political a high building has the advantage of exceptionally pure air to breathe. But there are many interests to consider in representation. The unhygienic conditions of poor women and children and the problems presented by criminal and a community and the blessing of the Londoner on the housetop is the bane of his brothers in the street. We cannot put intemperate women and by prostitution are closely associated the case in better language than in that of Mr. Whibley’s with the economic conditions of female labour. 6. Women article:’’ London is a true city of the North, and cannot should have a direct voice in legislation upon these matters endure tall houses, which shut out the light and cast long and also upon questions of education, religion, guardianship shadows. Nothing should interrupt the rays of the sun, of children, housing of the poor, and all issues of public ,alway3 too few, which fall upon its streets....... (London’s) health and morals. 7. The possession of the vote would -

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