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THE ACCIDENT AT SLOUGH.
1893 upon him. It is also impossible not to wish that if he be innocent facts entirely exculpating him and inculpating the real offender may speedily be made known to his friends and by them to the Home Office. It is, however, another matter to wish the General Medical Council to hold an inquiry into such a story, and to sift evidence, already sifted by the Home Office, with a view to either confirming or disagreeing with the decision arrived at by the Home Secretary and his advisers. It was a foregone conclusion that the High Court would not order the General Medical Council to undertake such a task, and we think that the Council have shown proper discretion in not acting upon their own initiative in the matter of rehearing the case.
practice
Annotations. --
"-=-=’’
Local Government Board in the year 1895, reference to which was made in THE LANCET at the time and on subat that time in sequent occasions.l The common workhouses all over the country for paupers to be employed to perform the duties of nurses in the sick and lying-in wards, or in any other part of the workhouse, has been abolished, and paid and qualified nurses and assistants have succeeded them. But the Local Government Board also insisted on the appointment of a superintendent nurse who should have sole control over the infirmary wards. The matron was still to be the matron of the workhouse, not excluding the infirmary, and the result has been in not a few cases that there have been differences of opinion between the nurses on the one hand and the master and matron on the other. At the East Preston Work. house in West Sussex a long series of complaints preferred by the superintendent nurse has recently been investigated by the guardians, who expressed the opinion that the friction was only what might be expected when the Local Government Board insisted on the guardians appointing two authorities in the workhouse. At all events, unpleasantness of this kind amongst officers does not conduce to the thorough discharge of tneir respective duties. All the officers concerned have been supplied with a copy of the guardians’ report.
I
THE TREATMENT OF OUR SICK SOLDIERS. MR. W. BURDETT-COUTTS, in the capacity of a special correspondent to the Times, has sent to that paper a lurid account of the inadequacy of the preparations made for the medical care and nursing of the sick in our large army in , South Africa. The amount of sickness which has manifested itself in all our camps has for some time been the subject of serious consideration among medical men, for, as we had occasion to remark a fortnight ago, the lists of daily casualties demonstrate only too plainly that we have not yet solved the problem of protecting large bodies of troops from the ravages of such diseases as enteric fever and dysentery. Mr. Burdett-Coutts’s letter will produce upon the public more than the impression that medical knowledge is at fault in the presence of certain problems of epidemiology. He has levelled an indictment against the War Office, the gist of which is that no proper arrangements of any kind have been made for the care of the large number of sick which should have been expected in an army of 200,000 men. Who is to blame and to what extent, as well as how far all the statements are accurate, will certainly be discussed by the public and we trust by Parliament ; and we may be allowed to hope that the department which has covered itself with glory in all its arrangements for dealing with the wounded will have been found not to have broken down so completely as Mr. Burdett - Coutts believes in its management of the sick. Probably Mr. Burdett-Coutts is ignorant of the extent to which the Commander- in-Chief’s lightning strategy has dislocated the, plans of the Royal Army Medical Corps. One thing is certain: for the War Office to quote any eulogistic words of Sir William Mac Cormac and Mr. Traves uttered upon their return two months ago from the seat of war will be no complete answer to the charges. The experiences of Sir William Mac Cormac and Mr. Treves enabled them to express very definite opinions upon the treatment of our wounded in South Africa, upon the way in which battle-fields were stripped, and upon the heroism of many members of the: Royal Army Medical Corps, but the vast epidemic of typhoid fever now prevalent did not come within their purview. But when Sir William Mac Cormac and Mr. Treves have spoken of the same things as Mr. Burdett-Coutts medical men willl know who is the more likely to have the necessary equipment for giving us the truth. .
l .
J
.
WORKHOUSE OFFICIALS AT VARIANCE. EXCELLENT indeed has been the result of the operation of the circular upon workhouse administration issued by the
THE ACCIDENT AT SLOUGH. MR. W. BRAMWELL BOOTH, writing to the Ti?ites of June 25th, makes a sensible suggestion-namely, that there should be a third man on the footplate of the engine of an express train who should act as look-out. Mr. Booth argues that an express train should, like a steamship, have a captain who should keep a look-out for signals and’who should issue orders to the engineers-who, in short, should let the driver drive. This is to our minds an excellent suggestion and so simple that, like most simple things, it is a wonder that nobody seems to have thought of it before. Of course, it would cost money, but we are sure that no railway shareholder would object to a slightly diminished dividend if he knew that by that means increased safety would be afforded to the travelling public and a necessarily terrible strain taken off the minds of a very noble and arduously worked set of men. Only the innovation should be made compulsory, if made at all, upon every company. The custom of running past distant signals in the hope that the home signal will be clear, or if not that the breaks will pull the train up, seems far too common and should be severely put In this particular accident, however, there was an end to. no intentional running past the signals. The driver in his evidence stated that he never saw the signals and must have lost himself. Nothing can foresee or prevent these occasional failures of mental power. They happen to the greatest minds, as for instance, to Napoleon at Waterloo in the great cavalry attack. -
THE EXPEDITION OF THE LIVERPOOL SCHOOL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE TO BRAZIL AND THE UNITED STATES. THE expedition which has been organised by the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine for the purpose of investigating the causes of yellow fever in the United States and Brazil will have the cooperation of the British Government. The committee of the school have received an intimation from the Marquis of Salisbury that he had asked the British Ambassador at Washington and Her Britannic Majesty’s consul at Par, to obtain all possible facilities from the United States’ and Brazilian authoIt is also pleasing rities on behalf of the expedition. to find that official invitations to the expedition to _
1
-____
THE LANCET, April 13th
(p. 945) and May 25th (p. 1326), 1895.
practice
Annotations. --
"-=-=’’
Local Government Board in the year 1895, reference to which was made in THE LANCET at the time and on subat that time in sequent occasions.l The common workhouses all over the country for paupers to be employed to perform the duties of nurses in the sick and lying-in wards, or in any other part of the workhouse, has been abolished, and paid and qualified nurses and assistants have succeeded them. But the Local Government Board also insisted on the appointment of a superintendent nurse who should have sole control over the infirmary wards. The matron was still to be the matron of the workhouse, not excluding the infirmary, and the result has been in not a few cases that there have been differences of opinion between the nurses on the one hand and the master and matron on the other. At the East Preston Work. house in West Sussex a long series of complaints preferred by the superintendent nurse has recently been investigated by the guardians, who expressed the opinion that the friction was only what might be expected when the Local Government Board insisted on the guardians appointing two authorities in the workhouse. At all events, unpleasantness of this kind amongst officers does not conduce to the thorough discharge of tneir respective duties. All the officers concerned have been supplied with a copy of the guardians’ report.
I
THE TREATMENT OF OUR SICK SOLDIERS. MR. W. BURDETT-COUTTS, in the capacity of a special correspondent to the Times, has sent to that paper a lurid account of the inadequacy of the preparations made for the medical care and nursing of the sick in our large army in , South Africa. The amount of sickness which has manifested itself in all our camps has for some time been the subject of serious consideration among medical men, for, as we had occasion to remark a fortnight ago, the lists of daily casualties demonstrate only too plainly that we have not yet solved the problem of protecting large bodies of troops from the ravages of such diseases as enteric fever and dysentery. Mr. Burdett-Coutts’s letter will produce upon the public more than the impression that medical knowledge is at fault in the presence of certain problems of epidemiology. He has levelled an indictment against the War Office, the gist of which is that no proper arrangements of any kind have been made for the care of the large number of sick which should have been expected in an army of 200,000 men. Who is to blame and to what extent, as well as how far all the statements are accurate, will certainly be discussed by the public and we trust by Parliament ; and we may be allowed to hope that the department which has covered itself with glory in all its arrangements for dealing with the wounded will have been found not to have broken down so completely as Mr. Burdett - Coutts believes in its management of the sick. Probably Mr. Burdett-Coutts is ignorant of the extent to which the Commander- in-Chief’s lightning strategy has dislocated the, plans of the Royal Army Medical Corps. One thing is certain: for the War Office to quote any eulogistic words of Sir William Mac Cormac and Mr. Traves uttered upon their return two months ago from the seat of war will be no complete answer to the charges. The experiences of Sir William Mac Cormac and Mr. Treves enabled them to express very definite opinions upon the treatment of our wounded in South Africa, upon the way in which battle-fields were stripped, and upon the heroism of many members of the: Royal Army Medical Corps, but the vast epidemic of typhoid fever now prevalent did not come within their purview. But when Sir William Mac Cormac and Mr. Treves have spoken of the same things as Mr. Burdett-Coutts medical men willl know who is the more likely to have the necessary equipment for giving us the truth. .
l .
J
.
WORKHOUSE OFFICIALS AT VARIANCE. EXCELLENT indeed has been the result of the operation of the circular upon workhouse administration issued by the
THE ACCIDENT AT SLOUGH. MR. W. BRAMWELL BOOTH, writing to the Ti?ites of June 25th, makes a sensible suggestion-namely, that there should be a third man on the footplate of the engine of an express train who should act as look-out. Mr. Booth argues that an express train should, like a steamship, have a captain who should keep a look-out for signals and’who should issue orders to the engineers-who, in short, should let the driver drive. This is to our minds an excellent suggestion and so simple that, like most simple things, it is a wonder that nobody seems to have thought of it before. Of course, it would cost money, but we are sure that no railway shareholder would object to a slightly diminished dividend if he knew that by that means increased safety would be afforded to the travelling public and a necessarily terrible strain taken off the minds of a very noble and arduously worked set of men. Only the innovation should be made compulsory, if made at all, upon every company. The custom of running past distant signals in the hope that the home signal will be clear, or if not that the breaks will pull the train up, seems far too common and should be severely put In this particular accident, however, there was an end to. no intentional running past the signals. The driver in his evidence stated that he never saw the signals and must have lost himself. Nothing can foresee or prevent these occasional failures of mental power. They happen to the greatest minds, as for instance, to Napoleon at Waterloo in the great cavalry attack. -
THE EXPEDITION OF THE LIVERPOOL SCHOOL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE TO BRAZIL AND THE UNITED STATES. THE expedition which has been organised by the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine for the purpose of investigating the causes of yellow fever in the United States and Brazil will have the cooperation of the British Government. The committee of the school have received an intimation from the Marquis of Salisbury that he had asked the British Ambassador at Washington and Her Britannic Majesty’s consul at Par, to obtain all possible facilities from the United States’ and Brazilian authoIt is also pleasing rities on behalf of the expedition. to find that official invitations to the expedition to _
1
-____
THE LANCET, April 13th
(p. 945) and May 25th (p. 1326), 1895.