THE CRUELTY OF COMPULSORY RETIREMENT.

491 too much a man of science to have attached any significance only exists in Government offices and hospitals. In trades, to his solitary experiment. But the story suffices to show the there is nominally no compulsory retirement, but if an intense earnestness of Pettenkofer as an investigator and the artisan is out of work at the age of 60 he will find hardly any sincerity of his efforts to throw light upon a terrible scourge employer who will give him more work although the same We now know that employer would probably have no hesitation in keeping on a with a view to its prevention. Pettenkofer’s views on sanitation, pure air, and pure water man who had grown up to the age of 60 in his employment. In this way retirement is to a certain extent compulsory, for are correct and since the time when he expressed his views we have had ample practical confirmation of them. None if a man cannot get work he is compelled to cease from will dispute that with the increasing attention that has it. But in the liberal professions we think that compulsory been given to these specific matters the health of the retirement does in many cases result in harm. Supposing people in all parts of the world has improved or that that the 65-year rule had obtained in the Church we should Pettenkofer, though an obstinate sceptic in certain matters, long ago have been deprived of the services of the present was a great sanitarian. Pettenkofer also turned his Metropolitan, a loss which would have been very great. It attention to many physiological problems of the utmost would be undoubtedly difficult to decide without giving His famous researches which established offence as to when a man became unfit, but that some modiimportance. the quantitative relations between the air inhaled and fication should be made in the present inelastic system of exhaled by animals have been proved to be a valuable compulsory retirement is, we think, certain. contribution to our knowledge of the metabolic processes of the animal body. Pettenkofer in conjunction SUTURE OF WOUNDS OF THE HEART. with Voit made some most important observations on THE Medical Record of New York recently contained the effect of muscular exertion upon the consumption an important paper on this subject by Dr. L. L. Hill. of oxygen and the production of carbonic acid. A related research was also conducted by these investigators A wound of the heart may be produced by a stab or by a blow upon the chest, especially after a full meal, when on the functions of particular nutritives in the animal body which involved laying down a theory of meta- the distended stomach pushes the heart upwards and In these researches Pettenkofer worked out forwards and causes a larger area of the organ to come bolism. his now classical method for the estimation of car- in contact with the thoracic wall. When haemorrhage into bonic acid gas in respired air and in the atmosphere. the pericardium is not arrested a fatal result is inevitable, This method, as is well known, depends upon the action of for when the limit of pericardial distensibility is reached carbonic acid upon baryta water, the gas being absorbed the heart is unable to dilate and the cardiac movements are Doubtless his mechanically stopped. Dr. Hill therefore insists that it with the formation of barium carbonate. is the of the surgeon to operate in every case of experiments on the processes of nutrition led him to seek a wound duty of the heart. It is as important to do so asThe Pettenkofer test for means of detecting bile in urine. to a In 45 collected relieve hernia. strangulated biliary acids which he subsequently discovered depended of the heartcases in which caused injuries rupture a train when formation of of colours urine upon the without opening the pericardium a fatal result always with was treated and bile common containing syrup survived as long as 14 hours. Of sulphuric acid. The most marked colour produced was ensued. Only one patient for on heart wounds 41 per cent. have a beautiful purple. The test has since been modified in patients operated as 10 against per cent. of those on whom no various ways, the most improvement being the recovered, was performed. Operators agree that for closing a use of glucose instead of cane sugar. Glucose does not char operation wound in the myocardium interrupted sutures are preferable when dissolved in strong sulphuric acid, whereas cane sugar to continuous sutures. They should be close together and not does, and this occurrence is apt to mask any colour that may involve the enoocardium. Silk is the best material. The be produced. The various schools of hygiene throughout should be similar to that used for intestinal suture. needle Germany contain professors of public health who were should be and tied during diastole. The The suture passed formerly pupils of Professor Pettenkofer. The veteran savant the heart and to facilitate first suture be used to steady may a at and such of life died the age of 83 years great length the passage of others. Ollier was opposed to the use of a was consistent with his precepts. general anaesthetic, but if the pulse was strong and the general condition was good chloroform might be given. Parrozzani THE CRUELTY OF COMPULSORY RETIREMENT. operated in two cases without anaesthesia and observed only A CORRESPONDENT is moved by " the lamented death of slight movement when he cut the skin and when he passed our beloved Qaeen, and upon contemplation of the many sutures into the myocardium. Dr. Hill narrates the two glorious and magnificent achievements of Her Majesty’s following cases. A girl, aged eight years, carried in her waist later years," to write to us upon the subject of the injustice a needle two and a half inches long which was driven into and cruelty of compulsory retirement. There is liberty in her heart in falling against a tree. She was brought to his most things, he says, but in the matter of labour liberty is house with anxious countenance, rapid and weak pulse, and in some quarters positively denied. Our correspondent laboured respiration. The needle had entered the left fifth further points out that the moment a man suddenly ceases intercostal space and the head could be seen moving under from his wonted labour he begins to deteriorate, and the skin with the cardiac pulsations. 10 drops of a 4 per instances a number of men and women who have done good cent. solution of cocaine were injected under the skin and work in old age. There is no doubt that a hard-and-fast an incision an inch in length was made down on the rule of retirement acts in many cases both unjustly and needle, which was extracted with dressing forceps. The injuriously-unjustly because age has nothing to do with wound was immediately closed. Recovery followed. In a man’s capacity for work, and injuriously because in some the second case a man, aged 28 years, received a stab cases the retirement comes when the ripe experience of the in the left fourth intercostal space a little inside the worker is at its best. The old proverb,"A woman is as old as nipple. The limbs became relaxed and the pulse was hardly she looks and a man is as old as he feels," is a very true one, perceptible. The sounds of the heart were indistinct and it is ridiculous to say that no one is fit for work and the area of cardiac dulness was increased. Evidently after 60. Some men are old at 40 while others are fresh the pericardium was filling with blood and the heart’s and juvenile at 80, and the personal equation must never be action would soon be stopped. External haemorrhage was overlooked. Compulsory retirement, so far as we know, slight. The blood was let out by enlarging the opening in.

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