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AN AUSTRALASIAN COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS
1251 32 deaths having been reported in 1934-35. As regards the countries of North Africa an increase in endemo-sporadicity occurred in 1935 in Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco, whereas in Egypt the situation was better in 1935 than in the two previous years. The rest of the article will deal with the distribution of the tick-borne diseases variously known as benign summer dermotyphus, exanthematous fever, or boutonneuse fever throughout the Mediterranean basin, and of murine typhus in various European
countries. SIR CHARLES KENDERDINE
THE death on Monday last at Lewes of Sir Charles Halstaff Kenderdine removes one whose services rendered to the victims of the European war were of outstanding value. A well-known land agent, he was at the outbreak of war secretary of the Land Union, but when the disabled soldiers and sailors began to reach home he became the leading spirit in the care and treatment of thousands of badly mutilated men. He was director of the artificial limb supplies and chairman of the advisory council on artificial limbs at the Ministry of Pensions from 1917-20 ; the light metal limbs which were soon devised were a substantial improvement on anything previously in use, while great attention was paid to standardising the construction of limbs. The restoration to conditions approaching normal life of many who would previously have been doomed to hopeless crippledom was frequent and the good results of the work cannot be exaggerated. When Queen Mary’s Hospital at Roehampton was established for the reception of mutilated sailors, soldiers, and airmen, Sir Charles was the main instrument in raising through public subscription sufficient money to buy Roehampton House, where the beneficent work was later extended to the civilian as well as the military disabled. Sir Charles, who was created K.B.E. in 1918, was also one of the founders of the Queen’s Hospital at Sidcup where facial injuries received during the war were treated, often with sensational results. The hospital is now a convalescent centre under the dispensation of the London County Councils SILICOSIS IN SOUTH WALES
appointment of Prof. T. David Jones, professor of mining in the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, is of interest to many members of the medical profession because of Prof. Jones’s long association with the late Dr. J. S. Haldane, F.R.S., in work relating to industrial risks in the various mining industries. Prof. Jones has taken an early opportunity of urging mining engineers throughout the South Wales coalfield to pay more attention to the problem of silicosis-a problem whose final solution necessarily demands cooperation between workers trained in very different fields of science, medical, engineering, chemical, and geological. His lecture on silicosis in the South Wales coalfield, given at the South Wales Institute of Engineers on May 14th, was one of THE recent
Ph.D.,
as
three addresses in which he proposes to cover the different aspects of silicosis and allied dust diseases in this area. While fully admitting the importance of what he called classical silicosis in coal-miners engaged in special work involving exposure to the dust of hard stone, hard heading workings, borers, and sinkers, he suggested that among those accepted for compensation by official bodies there were a proportion that might be described as official "
silicosis, in which the type of disease failed to conform to the classical description, and whose exact nature must be held doubtful. Many ofthese cases, he thinks, are in reality cases of bronchitis, under which name indeed they are usually diagnosed by the doctors in the mining areas ; and he made a strong plea for various improvements in mine hygiene, including the protection of miners from exposure to cold in " spakes " in the anthracite field. He also appealed for treatment facilities for early cases of this condition, and suggested that the Welsh National Memorial Association, already equipped for the treatment of tuberculosis, might be a suitable body for this purpose, if the necessary additional expense could be met. While paying a tribute to the conscientious work of the medical officers of the Silicosis Board, he suggested that they might well be given additional facilities in order to clarify the diagnosis in doubtful cases. Prof. Jones’s lecture was followed by a valuable discussion, in which several medical men as well as mining engineers took part. There was general agreement that the silicosis of the South Wales coalfield is a genuine problem complicated to a very great extent by the fact that there is exposure to a combination of dusts, some chemically active, some relatively inert, so that the clinical picture is far less simple than that, for example, presented in the goldmining industry on the Rand. AN AUSTRALASIAN COLLEGE
AT
a
meeting
OF PHYSICIANS
held in Melbourne
on
May 8th and
9th, the Association of Physicians of Australasia to the principle that a College of Physicians should be inaugurated in Australasia. The preliminary steps are now being made to put the resolution into effect. We understand that it is intended to model the new college so far as possible on the pattern of the Royal College of Physicians of London.
agreed
THE centenary of the Royal Medical Benevolent Fund is to be celebrated by the Royal Society of Medicine on Wednesday, June 10th, when Dr. Robert Hutchison and Sir Thomas Barlow, the two presidents, will receive guests at an evening reception at the Society’s house in Wimpole-street, W. Sir Thomas Lewis, F.R.S., will deliver the George Alexander Gibson lecture of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh on Monday and Tuesday, June 8th and 9th, at 5 P.M. His subject is Symptoms and Signs of Embolism in the Limbs, with special reference to pain. OuR last issue contained an announcement that Sir Robert Rait, principal and vice-chancellor of Glasgow University, was retiring on Sept. 30th and would be succeeded by Sir Hector Hetherington. Sir Robert’s retirement was due to ill-health, and we regret to record that he died on Monday last in his 63rd year. THE board of governors of Westminster Hospital have accepted the offer of about 350,000 for the site of the hospital made by the firm of John Laing and Son of Carlisle. A further sum of 250,000 will however be required to complete the rebuilding of the hospital on its new site in Horseferry-road. Messrs. Laing intend to build a block of offices on the old site.
countries. SIR CHARLES KENDERDINE
THE death on Monday last at Lewes of Sir Charles Halstaff Kenderdine removes one whose services rendered to the victims of the European war were of outstanding value. A well-known land agent, he was at the outbreak of war secretary of the Land Union, but when the disabled soldiers and sailors began to reach home he became the leading spirit in the care and treatment of thousands of badly mutilated men. He was director of the artificial limb supplies and chairman of the advisory council on artificial limbs at the Ministry of Pensions from 1917-20 ; the light metal limbs which were soon devised were a substantial improvement on anything previously in use, while great attention was paid to standardising the construction of limbs. The restoration to conditions approaching normal life of many who would previously have been doomed to hopeless crippledom was frequent and the good results of the work cannot be exaggerated. When Queen Mary’s Hospital at Roehampton was established for the reception of mutilated sailors, soldiers, and airmen, Sir Charles was the main instrument in raising through public subscription sufficient money to buy Roehampton House, where the beneficent work was later extended to the civilian as well as the military disabled. Sir Charles, who was created K.B.E. in 1918, was also one of the founders of the Queen’s Hospital at Sidcup where facial injuries received during the war were treated, often with sensational results. The hospital is now a convalescent centre under the dispensation of the London County Councils SILICOSIS IN SOUTH WALES
appointment of Prof. T. David Jones, professor of mining in the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, is of interest to many members of the medical profession because of Prof. Jones’s long association with the late Dr. J. S. Haldane, F.R.S., in work relating to industrial risks in the various mining industries. Prof. Jones has taken an early opportunity of urging mining engineers throughout the South Wales coalfield to pay more attention to the problem of silicosis-a problem whose final solution necessarily demands cooperation between workers trained in very different fields of science, medical, engineering, chemical, and geological. His lecture on silicosis in the South Wales coalfield, given at the South Wales Institute of Engineers on May 14th, was one of THE recent
Ph.D.,
as
three addresses in which he proposes to cover the different aspects of silicosis and allied dust diseases in this area. While fully admitting the importance of what he called classical silicosis in coal-miners engaged in special work involving exposure to the dust of hard stone, hard heading workings, borers, and sinkers, he suggested that among those accepted for compensation by official bodies there were a proportion that might be described as official "
silicosis, in which the type of disease failed to conform to the classical description, and whose exact nature must be held doubtful. Many ofthese cases, he thinks, are in reality cases of bronchitis, under which name indeed they are usually diagnosed by the doctors in the mining areas ; and he made a strong plea for various improvements in mine hygiene, including the protection of miners from exposure to cold in " spakes " in the anthracite field. He also appealed for treatment facilities for early cases of this condition, and suggested that the Welsh National Memorial Association, already equipped for the treatment of tuberculosis, might be a suitable body for this purpose, if the necessary additional expense could be met. While paying a tribute to the conscientious work of the medical officers of the Silicosis Board, he suggested that they might well be given additional facilities in order to clarify the diagnosis in doubtful cases. Prof. Jones’s lecture was followed by a valuable discussion, in which several medical men as well as mining engineers took part. There was general agreement that the silicosis of the South Wales coalfield is a genuine problem complicated to a very great extent by the fact that there is exposure to a combination of dusts, some chemically active, some relatively inert, so that the clinical picture is far less simple than that, for example, presented in the goldmining industry on the Rand. AN AUSTRALASIAN COLLEGE
AT
a
meeting
OF PHYSICIANS
held in Melbourne
on
May 8th and
9th, the Association of Physicians of Australasia to the principle that a College of Physicians should be inaugurated in Australasia. The preliminary steps are now being made to put the resolution into effect. We understand that it is intended to model the new college so far as possible on the pattern of the Royal College of Physicians of London.
agreed
THE centenary of the Royal Medical Benevolent Fund is to be celebrated by the Royal Society of Medicine on Wednesday, June 10th, when Dr. Robert Hutchison and Sir Thomas Barlow, the two presidents, will receive guests at an evening reception at the Society’s house in Wimpole-street, W. Sir Thomas Lewis, F.R.S., will deliver the George Alexander Gibson lecture of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh on Monday and Tuesday, June 8th and 9th, at 5 P.M. His subject is Symptoms and Signs of Embolism in the Limbs, with special reference to pain. OuR last issue contained an announcement that Sir Robert Rait, principal and vice-chancellor of Glasgow University, was retiring on Sept. 30th and would be succeeded by Sir Hector Hetherington. Sir Robert’s retirement was due to ill-health, and we regret to record that he died on Monday last in his 63rd year. THE board of governors of Westminster Hospital have accepted the offer of about 350,000 for the site of the hospital made by the firm of John Laing and Son of Carlisle. A further sum of 250,000 will however be required to complete the rebuilding of the hospital on its new site in Horseferry-road. Messrs. Laing intend to build a block of offices on the old site.