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THE METROPOLITAN PROVIDENT MEDICAL ASSOCIATION.
40 she may possibly have been in a worse condition than the house surgeon thought she was, he acted carefully and to the best of his ability, and it is a monstrous shame that such unreasonable views of any mishap should be taken. The hospitals only ask for just criticism ; the individuals who do the work there are human and are sometimes liable to make mistakes like the rest of us, and when those mistakes occur the authors of them have a right to expect justice. Perhaps it is too much to expect a fair view of such things to be taken while "A Hospital Scandal" on the placard of an evening paper may result in a substantial increase of the circulation ; and what does it matter if a few house surgeons and nurses have a little injustice done them ? To be logical the papers might publish some of the good results that come out of hospitals, for probably the worst enemies of these institutions will acknowledge that occasionally people obtain a little benefit from them. There are peculiar difficulties in the duties of house surgeons. Their responsibilities are very great, and when we think of the thousands of cases in which they have to decide whether the patient is fit to leave or not we can only admire the judgment and care which result in so few mistakes. -
HEALTH IN THE POST OFFICE SERVICE. THE following resolution, which was unanimously carried at the recent conference of the Postal Telegraph Clerks
Association, deserves the serious attention of the authorities :" This Conference expresses its regret that the immense and invaluable opportunities afforded for the collection of reliable statistical information relating to many important questions in economic science and public health which are afforded by the large bodies of men and women employed by the Post Office are not utilised, and urges upon the Postmaster-General the desirability of taking steps towards the collection and periodical publication of statistical information relating to postal employes, which shall be easily accessible and readily comparable with the statistical information now collected and tabulated by the Board of Trade, the Registrar-General’s, and other public departments."
It is a reproach to an important Government department like the General Post Office that such a resolution could be framed, and the sooner a Government department which employs some 140,000 men and women remedies the existing state of things the better. By its action the Post Office is robbing the country of valuable information which is readily supplied by other departments, and this in spite of recognised medical opinion. We sincerely trust that the resolution will be acted upon.
POLITICS IN
MEDICINE.
and men who did or not, Little Englanders, Rebeccaites, the persons-if there are any left-who believe the earth is flat, Peculiar People, people who having no business of their own are kind enough to look after other people’s for them, &c. There should be an opening for all of these, and what a happy place Haverfordwest would be. Mr. Harold Frederic has recently given as a definition of hell that it is a place where everyone has to mind his own business. If this be so, Haverfordwest would become by adopting our advice a very Heaven. ___
THE METROPOLITAN PROVIDENT MEDICAL
ASSOCIATION. IT is impossible not to feel a certain sympathy and even admiration for the way in which the committee, especially Mr. Claude Montefiore and Mr. Bousfield, of this association work at the problem of providing medical attendance for classes, not paupers or persons able to pay the ordinary fees of respectable medical practitioners, but for the great numbers between these extremes. The success has been considerable, including nineteen dispensaries, of which ten are self-supporting, 35,000 members contributing nearly £ 5000 a year in periodical payments. They profess to encourage thrift, to supply good medical treatment, and to deal fairly with the medical profession. THE LANCET has occasionally been the medium of complaint that this association permits canvassing and the advertising of the names of its medical officers. We have been at some pains to ascertain the facts, and we are informed that while collectors have to be employed in certain places, who sometimes obtain new members, the collectors are specially instructed not to interfere in any way with the private patients of medical men or with working people who subscribe already to clubs having a medical officer. This instruction should be very explicit, and the breach of it should be followed by the dismissal of the collector. The names of all respectable practitioners are accepted in these dispensaries. The rules involve a wagelimit of 30s. or in the case of a family 40s. per week. The total receipts, including grants from Hospital Sunday, donations, subscriptions, &c., and provident members’ payments, are .66079 16s. 8d. The expenditure is about the same. The medical staff and dentists get only .62679 13s. 6d. The collectors, secretary, dispenser, &c., get .61203 5s. lld. Though the remuneration of the medical staff is inadequate, they are duly represented on the committee and their pay is a first charge on the funds. The promotors of these disto the gratitude of medical have one claim pensaries great are chief the advocates of reform in the men-they amongst and out-patient department, place their dispensaries at the service of the hospitals for this end.
"THE cup of sorrow has been brimming over for some time and it is now nearly full." This pathetic sentence applied in the House of Commons by a member of one Celtic community to his country may well be applied to another when we read in a Welsh paper: "Haverfordwest has onee THE ABUSE OF HOSPITAL RELIEF. medical man to each thousand inhabitants, and, strange to LONDON " A PARSON," who writes to the Saturday Review say, each doctor-there are six in all-is a Tory. There the should be a good opening there for a Radical man of upon subject of hospital relief and its demoralising effect medicine." Are politics and medicine so interdependent ?2 upon certain of the poorer classes of society, has drawn Of course, as Herbert Spencer has shown with great attention to a serious mischief and happily illustrated its " clearness, medicine and the priesthood went at one time effects. He tells, for instance, of an advanced progressive hand in hand, so naturally a medical man bears the lady whose husband is a painter," and whose view it is that interior instinct of Toryism. The essence of good medicine the working man " keeps up the hospitals through indirect is not to be meddlesome, not to upset existing insti- taxation," and of another of his parishioners "who keeps a tutions so long as they work well, and, as the old Greek banking account, owns three houses, and whose occupation physician said long ago, to do no harm even if you can do brings him in Z80 a year," but who, nevertheless, does not think it beneath him to send his wife to the hospital. That no good, whereas Radicalism-but we are a non-political is it well flourish on a Diseases, known, journal. virgin soil, such a state of feeling should exist is much to be regretted, and if Haverfordwest would afford so good an opening for a and the most regrettable feature about it is that it is not Radical medical man we would pray the hypothetical Radical wholly or only bad. The niggardliness of the man is very not to keep it all for himself. Let him remember the claims possibly a habit contracted long before the banking account of Faith-healers, Christian Scientists, Undenominational had any existence, and the woman’s misapprehension may Educationists, Anti-this, that, and the other ’ists, women be safely enough attributed to the working in her mind of
HEALTH IN THE POST OFFICE SERVICE. THE following resolution, which was unanimously carried at the recent conference of the Postal Telegraph Clerks
Association, deserves the serious attention of the authorities :" This Conference expresses its regret that the immense and invaluable opportunities afforded for the collection of reliable statistical information relating to many important questions in economic science and public health which are afforded by the large bodies of men and women employed by the Post Office are not utilised, and urges upon the Postmaster-General the desirability of taking steps towards the collection and periodical publication of statistical information relating to postal employes, which shall be easily accessible and readily comparable with the statistical information now collected and tabulated by the Board of Trade, the Registrar-General’s, and other public departments."
It is a reproach to an important Government department like the General Post Office that such a resolution could be framed, and the sooner a Government department which employs some 140,000 men and women remedies the existing state of things the better. By its action the Post Office is robbing the country of valuable information which is readily supplied by other departments, and this in spite of recognised medical opinion. We sincerely trust that the resolution will be acted upon.
POLITICS IN
MEDICINE.
and men who did or not, Little Englanders, Rebeccaites, the persons-if there are any left-who believe the earth is flat, Peculiar People, people who having no business of their own are kind enough to look after other people’s for them, &c. There should be an opening for all of these, and what a happy place Haverfordwest would be. Mr. Harold Frederic has recently given as a definition of hell that it is a place where everyone has to mind his own business. If this be so, Haverfordwest would become by adopting our advice a very Heaven. ___
THE METROPOLITAN PROVIDENT MEDICAL
ASSOCIATION. IT is impossible not to feel a certain sympathy and even admiration for the way in which the committee, especially Mr. Claude Montefiore and Mr. Bousfield, of this association work at the problem of providing medical attendance for classes, not paupers or persons able to pay the ordinary fees of respectable medical practitioners, but for the great numbers between these extremes. The success has been considerable, including nineteen dispensaries, of which ten are self-supporting, 35,000 members contributing nearly £ 5000 a year in periodical payments. They profess to encourage thrift, to supply good medical treatment, and to deal fairly with the medical profession. THE LANCET has occasionally been the medium of complaint that this association permits canvassing and the advertising of the names of its medical officers. We have been at some pains to ascertain the facts, and we are informed that while collectors have to be employed in certain places, who sometimes obtain new members, the collectors are specially instructed not to interfere in any way with the private patients of medical men or with working people who subscribe already to clubs having a medical officer. This instruction should be very explicit, and the breach of it should be followed by the dismissal of the collector. The names of all respectable practitioners are accepted in these dispensaries. The rules involve a wagelimit of 30s. or in the case of a family 40s. per week. The total receipts, including grants from Hospital Sunday, donations, subscriptions, &c., and provident members’ payments, are .66079 16s. 8d. The expenditure is about the same. The medical staff and dentists get only .62679 13s. 6d. The collectors, secretary, dispenser, &c., get .61203 5s. lld. Though the remuneration of the medical staff is inadequate, they are duly represented on the committee and their pay is a first charge on the funds. The promotors of these disto the gratitude of medical have one claim pensaries great are chief the advocates of reform in the men-they amongst and out-patient department, place their dispensaries at the service of the hospitals for this end.
"THE cup of sorrow has been brimming over for some time and it is now nearly full." This pathetic sentence applied in the House of Commons by a member of one Celtic community to his country may well be applied to another when we read in a Welsh paper: "Haverfordwest has onee THE ABUSE OF HOSPITAL RELIEF. medical man to each thousand inhabitants, and, strange to LONDON " A PARSON," who writes to the Saturday Review say, each doctor-there are six in all-is a Tory. There the should be a good opening there for a Radical man of upon subject of hospital relief and its demoralising effect medicine." Are politics and medicine so interdependent ?2 upon certain of the poorer classes of society, has drawn Of course, as Herbert Spencer has shown with great attention to a serious mischief and happily illustrated its " clearness, medicine and the priesthood went at one time effects. He tells, for instance, of an advanced progressive hand in hand, so naturally a medical man bears the lady whose husband is a painter," and whose view it is that interior instinct of Toryism. The essence of good medicine the working man " keeps up the hospitals through indirect is not to be meddlesome, not to upset existing insti- taxation," and of another of his parishioners "who keeps a tutions so long as they work well, and, as the old Greek banking account, owns three houses, and whose occupation physician said long ago, to do no harm even if you can do brings him in Z80 a year," but who, nevertheless, does not think it beneath him to send his wife to the hospital. That no good, whereas Radicalism-but we are a non-political is it well flourish on a Diseases, known, journal. virgin soil, such a state of feeling should exist is much to be regretted, and if Haverfordwest would afford so good an opening for a and the most regrettable feature about it is that it is not Radical medical man we would pray the hypothetical Radical wholly or only bad. The niggardliness of the man is very not to keep it all for himself. Let him remember the claims possibly a habit contracted long before the banking account of Faith-healers, Christian Scientists, Undenominational had any existence, and the woman’s misapprehension may Educationists, Anti-this, that, and the other ’ists, women be safely enough attributed to the working in her mind of