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goods before shipment; and method of treating the alternative, on its arrival in this country raw material imported
consigner the
to treat the
some
the medical profession in London. The price of the dinner ticket (including wine) will be 25s., and as the number of seats is limited application should be made without delay to Mr. J. Y. W. MacAlister, the Royal Society of Medicine, 1, Wimpole-street, Cavendish-square, London, W. Viscount Bryce, until recently our Ambassador to the United States, and Mr. Lewis Harcourt, the Colonial Secretary, have already signified their intention of being present at the dinner.
in such a way as to destroy the infective spores or render them innocuous, has not yet been evolved-in fact, all the processes hitherto suggested, if efficient, have rendered the treated goods valueless from the commercial point of view. Of preventive measures other than those directed primarily to the imported raw material, cleanliness THE CRAZE FOR HYPODERMIC MEDICATION IN in the persons and habits of those employed in the ITALY. wool and hide trades is of the first importance. Professor Ferreri, of the University of Rome, This point has recently been emphasised by the seizes the opportunity in a recent number of the facts elicited during the progress of inquests in Policlinico1 of drawing attention to the alarming Bradford and Southwark respectively. In the former proportions this morbid psychic phenomenon has practically a fortnight elapsed between the cessa- reached in Italy. Hypodermic medication has been tion of work in a wool factory and the onset of the elevated to the position of a universal panacea, is being slowly embalmed by it. symptoms which terminated in generalised anthrax, and the populace Not are heroic remedies, approved by the only but during the whole of that time the same shirt official pharmacopoeia, introduced under the skin, did duty day and night, and its wearer slept with but all the mysterious specialities, which, thanks to. another man who was still employed in the factory extensive advertisement in the press, are recomfrom which it was suspected the infection was mended either by medical practitioners, by real or In the second case, nearly as long an fictitious members of religious orders in the odour derived. interval occurred between the unloading of a con- of sanctity, or by manufacturers of chemical on the of bankruptcy, are welcomed signment of Siberian hides and the appearance of a products a highly credulous public. subcutaneously by Why charbon on the chin of a casual waterside labourer, is it, Professor Ferreri asks, that no one has and during this interval the man was an inmate of hitherto had the courage to cry out against a large common lodging-house under conditions the this monstrous liberty granted to those who In both these cases the infer- are not doctors, and yet incur no responsibility ilL reverse of cleanly. practising hypodermic medication ? He considers ence is that the infective spores were carried upon that several factors have contributed in inducing, the skin surface or the clothes of either the victims this pernicious current of human therapeuticse. or their intimates for many days before they gained the ignorance of the populace towards the access to the tissues of their final hosts. elementary principles of health, scanty respect for sanitary laws and the acquiescence, not to say pusillanimity, of the medical profession, always at discord and therefore incapable of making its influence felt by the Government and Parliament. In France and Germany the law prosecutes those I I Ne quid nimis." who, not being doctors, usurp medical functions. In this country, though Professor Ferreri probably does not quite follow the distinction, there is no law A COMPLIMENTARY DINNER TO SURGEON____
verge
Annotations.
GENERAL GORGAS. IT is
proposed to give a complimentary dinner to Surgeon-General Gorgas, formerly chief of the Sanitary Department at Panama, now SurgeonGeneral of the U.S. Army, as a mark of professional appreciation of the splendid work achieved by him and by his two assistants, who are included in the invitation. The dinner will be held on March at 8 P.M., and the place will be 23rd, Monday, announced in good time. The proposal is supported by, among others, Sir Thomas Barlow, President of the Royal College of Physicians of London; Sir Rickman Godlee, President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England; Sir Francis H. Champneye, President of the Royal Society of Medicine; Sir David Ferrier, President of the Medical Society; Sir Havelock Charles, President of the Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene; Sir William Osler, Regius Professor of Medicine, Oxford ; Sir Clifford Allbutt, Regius Professor of Medicine, Cambridge ; Surgeon-General Arthur W. May, Director-General of the Naval Medical Service ; and Sir W. Launcelot Gubbins, Director-General of the Army Medical Service. Sir Thomas Barlow has consented to take the chair, and it is hoped that the company will be thoroughly representative of
against quackery, but only legislation to prevent an unqualified practitioner pretending that he is on Register. In Italy, however, they allow chemists, druggists, nurses whether trained or not, monks, nuns, and quacks of all kinds not only to givee injections of substances in common use or of known the Medical
composition, but to invent and manufacture them for their own ends. One of the worst results of this strange liberty accorded to those who exploit the functions of medical practitioners is the increasing number of neuropaths who, attracted by the possibility and ease of cure without having to make known their ailments, practise on themselves injections of substances which are often highly dangerous, and in this manner the ranks of the army of morphinomaniacs, cocainomaniacs, and etheromaniacs are largely reinforced. In his own experience Professor Ferreri finds that numbers of patients present themselves for treatment with affections of the ear, nose, and respiratory organs due solely to saturation of the organism with more or less poisonous substances introduced by means of hypodermic medication. To remedy the evil he suggests the passing of a law prohibiting the use of hypodermic syringes except by
medical men, and
1 Il Policlinico, Anno xxi., Fasc. 6, Feb. 8th, 1914, Roma.