- Email: [email protected]
DR. GEOFFREY DEAN
89
In
England Now
Running Commentary by Peripatetic Correspondents IN my old cottage, to which we like to retire at weekends, many inhabitants are more regularly present than ourselves. Prominent among them are large spiders, one of which may have to be removed from the bath any Saturday morning. This Saturday the company was rather different, comprising two small spiders, two " silver fish", and one centipede. This seemed to be an abuse of hospitality, and I complained to my wife. She suggested that this was part of the modern pattern of life to which I must learn to adjust. No doubt the senior spiders had gone away for the weekend, and the young striplings had taken advantage of this to invite their friends to a dance and
Letters
A
social occasion. I had come upon the aftermath of the party in which some were too tired to go home and had outstayed their welcome. Of course one never quite understands the young but one tries to be tolerant. Tolerance, however, does not extend to the point of doing without a bath on Saturday morning. The silver fish departed down the plug-hole without protest; the centipede, who must have been a gate-crasher, for who would invite to a dance a guest with a hundred feet, was less accommodating. In the end he had to be put down the lavatory, and one can only hope that the re-union of these two contingents in the cesspit was a congenial occasion. The young spiders were lifted out and allowed to go free. We are rather attached to our spiders and happy to share our accommodation with them. This is rather hard on the flies, but for them we have no real regard. Nevertheless this evidence of incipient delinquency in our spider population is a matter for concern. We hope those young ones were well disciplined when they returned to the bosom of the family. But we are not very hopeful. The young are very independent these days, and no doubt spider psychologists are teaching that suppression of natural tendencies is bad for the development of the personality. I hope it will not be left to me to apply the big stick. The drainage system of our house, dating from the last century, culminates in a septic tank situated at the bottom of the garden, behind what was originally the coach-house. The effluent from this cesspool permeates into the surrounding soil upon which are prudently sited our greenhouses and cold frames. This year the overflow has been considerable, and the cucumbers in their exuberant growth are lifting the lights off the frames. The builder thoughtfully placed this cesspool about 60 yards to leeward of the house, but the occupants of the more recent cottages, some 15 yards downwind, are presented with a more difficult problem of olfactory sublimation. Although they had manfully withstood the assaults on their turbinates of our compost heap and the piggery of the neighbouring farm, this seemed the final straw. Retaliation at first took the form of burning selected garden rubbish when the breeze was from a different quarter. Changeability of wind direction and the heaviness of this year’s rainfall soon confounded this ploy and led to more direct approaches. It became apparent that the cesspool must be emptied. Discussion of the most propitious time to accomplish this operation was sparked off at the breakfast table by my wife reading in the morning paper the long-range weather forecast of strong westerly winds. Our daughter took considerable interest, since in one fateful week in April she had lost both her tadpoles, consumed in their environment in mistake for lemonade by our youngest, and her guineapig, whose sudden and mysterious death had been attributed to the vapour emanating from the cesspool. Small wonder that when she took a message from the laboratory technician over the phone that evening she wrote on the pad the values for pH, Pcoa, Standard Bicarbonate, and Basic Cess. ’*’
’*’
..
Tragedy in three words: Trismus At Chrismus!
to
the Editor
DR. GEOFFREY DEAN
SIR,-On Aug. 14, 1965, the South African Medical_7ournal a letter from Dr. Geoffrey Dean in which he stated that a number of deaths attributable to assault in local gaols and police stations had occurred at the hospital at which he is a consultant physician. As a direct result of this expression of professional opinion Dr. Dean has been charged with publishing false information about prison conditions in South Africa and will stand trial on Feb. 3. I have known Dr. Dean personally for over twenty years. We first met as medical officers in the Royal Air Force, and we have kept in touch with each other since that time. I do not need to stress his professional eminence and repute, which is not only internationally recognised, but has been the subject of a letter by eminent colleagues and members of the Medical Research Council to the Times. However, from my own personal knowledge I feel impelled to record that I have known Dr. Dean on more than one occasion in the past to take a course of action contrary to his own personal or professional interests, as he or anyone else might have viewed them, solely because he believed that course to be the only right one for a man of integrity to take. It is therefore my belief that in writing as he did to the South African Medical Journal he was actuated by considerations of integrity and humanity, and that in prosecuting him for doing this his accusers can only impugn their own cause, however they may see it. I am also certain that Dr. Dean knew only too well the risk he was taking in doing what he did, and am bound to record my own admiration and respect for his moral courage in this matter. York Clinic, Guy’s Hospital, DAVID STAFFORD-CLARK. London, S.E.1.
published
MEDICAL SCHOOLS SiR,—Your thoughtful discussion1 of Prof. R. Milnes Walker’s monograph on Medical Education in Britain is welcome, but dispiriting-especially to those of us who work in the larger non-teaching hospitals. We know at first hand the difficulties of obtaining junior staff and the disproportionate reliance that we have to place on overseas graduates, welcome though they are. We know from our friends in general practice how applicants for assistantships have dwindled from a torrent to a trickle in twelve years, and we are painfully aware of the desperate situation that is likely to develop if these trends continue. We would have liked to hear more of the urgency of the need for new graduates, and less of the need for statesmanlike rethinking; it is, after all, going to be six years before students enrolled now become available as new doctors. In these circumstances, should not more serious consideration be given to the valuable potential of larger non-teaching units ? In Brighton we have an immediate catchment area of 300,000 with a population of close on a million within a twentymile radius: a consultant staff of over a hundred, a high proportion of whom have been appointed within the past ten years; a new, vigorous university with a school of biology now in the stage of active development; and immense local enthusiasm for the foundation of a medical school. Thorough groundwork has already been provided by the Malleson working parties 2and the Medical School Advisory Committee of the University of Nottingham 4; all that is needed is the decision to implement their proposals. Detailed local studies suggest that the necessary resources are available and could be deployed in a short time, with little initial capital outlay ; with a few more staff at the university to cover the additional requirements of a preclinical course in human biology; and with half a dozen hospital staff to allow time for, and to supervise, clinical teaching. These far from extravagant I
1. Lancet, 1965, ii, 1331. 2. School of Medicine and Human Biology: Reports of the Working Parties. London, 1963. 3. Br. med. J. 1965, ii, 1112. 4. Report of the Medical School Advisory Committee, University of Nottingham, June, 1965.
In
England Now
Running Commentary by Peripatetic Correspondents IN my old cottage, to which we like to retire at weekends, many inhabitants are more regularly present than ourselves. Prominent among them are large spiders, one of which may have to be removed from the bath any Saturday morning. This Saturday the company was rather different, comprising two small spiders, two " silver fish", and one centipede. This seemed to be an abuse of hospitality, and I complained to my wife. She suggested that this was part of the modern pattern of life to which I must learn to adjust. No doubt the senior spiders had gone away for the weekend, and the young striplings had taken advantage of this to invite their friends to a dance and
Letters
A
social occasion. I had come upon the aftermath of the party in which some were too tired to go home and had outstayed their welcome. Of course one never quite understands the young but one tries to be tolerant. Tolerance, however, does not extend to the point of doing without a bath on Saturday morning. The silver fish departed down the plug-hole without protest; the centipede, who must have been a gate-crasher, for who would invite to a dance a guest with a hundred feet, was less accommodating. In the end he had to be put down the lavatory, and one can only hope that the re-union of these two contingents in the cesspit was a congenial occasion. The young spiders were lifted out and allowed to go free. We are rather attached to our spiders and happy to share our accommodation with them. This is rather hard on the flies, but for them we have no real regard. Nevertheless this evidence of incipient delinquency in our spider population is a matter for concern. We hope those young ones were well disciplined when they returned to the bosom of the family. But we are not very hopeful. The young are very independent these days, and no doubt spider psychologists are teaching that suppression of natural tendencies is bad for the development of the personality. I hope it will not be left to me to apply the big stick. The drainage system of our house, dating from the last century, culminates in a septic tank situated at the bottom of the garden, behind what was originally the coach-house. The effluent from this cesspool permeates into the surrounding soil upon which are prudently sited our greenhouses and cold frames. This year the overflow has been considerable, and the cucumbers in their exuberant growth are lifting the lights off the frames. The builder thoughtfully placed this cesspool about 60 yards to leeward of the house, but the occupants of the more recent cottages, some 15 yards downwind, are presented with a more difficult problem of olfactory sublimation. Although they had manfully withstood the assaults on their turbinates of our compost heap and the piggery of the neighbouring farm, this seemed the final straw. Retaliation at first took the form of burning selected garden rubbish when the breeze was from a different quarter. Changeability of wind direction and the heaviness of this year’s rainfall soon confounded this ploy and led to more direct approaches. It became apparent that the cesspool must be emptied. Discussion of the most propitious time to accomplish this operation was sparked off at the breakfast table by my wife reading in the morning paper the long-range weather forecast of strong westerly winds. Our daughter took considerable interest, since in one fateful week in April she had lost both her tadpoles, consumed in their environment in mistake for lemonade by our youngest, and her guineapig, whose sudden and mysterious death had been attributed to the vapour emanating from the cesspool. Small wonder that when she took a message from the laboratory technician over the phone that evening she wrote on the pad the values for pH, Pcoa, Standard Bicarbonate, and Basic Cess. ’*’
’*’
..
Tragedy in three words: Trismus At Chrismus!
to
the Editor
DR. GEOFFREY DEAN
SIR,-On Aug. 14, 1965, the South African Medical_7ournal a letter from Dr. Geoffrey Dean in which he stated that a number of deaths attributable to assault in local gaols and police stations had occurred at the hospital at which he is a consultant physician. As a direct result of this expression of professional opinion Dr. Dean has been charged with publishing false information about prison conditions in South Africa and will stand trial on Feb. 3. I have known Dr. Dean personally for over twenty years. We first met as medical officers in the Royal Air Force, and we have kept in touch with each other since that time. I do not need to stress his professional eminence and repute, which is not only internationally recognised, but has been the subject of a letter by eminent colleagues and members of the Medical Research Council to the Times. However, from my own personal knowledge I feel impelled to record that I have known Dr. Dean on more than one occasion in the past to take a course of action contrary to his own personal or professional interests, as he or anyone else might have viewed them, solely because he believed that course to be the only right one for a man of integrity to take. It is therefore my belief that in writing as he did to the South African Medical Journal he was actuated by considerations of integrity and humanity, and that in prosecuting him for doing this his accusers can only impugn their own cause, however they may see it. I am also certain that Dr. Dean knew only too well the risk he was taking in doing what he did, and am bound to record my own admiration and respect for his moral courage in this matter. York Clinic, Guy’s Hospital, DAVID STAFFORD-CLARK. London, S.E.1.
published
MEDICAL SCHOOLS SiR,—Your thoughtful discussion1 of Prof. R. Milnes Walker’s monograph on Medical Education in Britain is welcome, but dispiriting-especially to those of us who work in the larger non-teaching hospitals. We know at first hand the difficulties of obtaining junior staff and the disproportionate reliance that we have to place on overseas graduates, welcome though they are. We know from our friends in general practice how applicants for assistantships have dwindled from a torrent to a trickle in twelve years, and we are painfully aware of the desperate situation that is likely to develop if these trends continue. We would have liked to hear more of the urgency of the need for new graduates, and less of the need for statesmanlike rethinking; it is, after all, going to be six years before students enrolled now become available as new doctors. In these circumstances, should not more serious consideration be given to the valuable potential of larger non-teaching units ? In Brighton we have an immediate catchment area of 300,000 with a population of close on a million within a twentymile radius: a consultant staff of over a hundred, a high proportion of whom have been appointed within the past ten years; a new, vigorous university with a school of biology now in the stage of active development; and immense local enthusiasm for the foundation of a medical school. Thorough groundwork has already been provided by the Malleson working parties 2and the Medical School Advisory Committee of the University of Nottingham 4; all that is needed is the decision to implement their proposals. Detailed local studies suggest that the necessary resources are available and could be deployed in a short time, with little initial capital outlay ; with a few more staff at the university to cover the additional requirements of a preclinical course in human biology; and with half a dozen hospital staff to allow time for, and to supervise, clinical teaching. These far from extravagant I
1. Lancet, 1965, ii, 1331. 2. School of Medicine and Human Biology: Reports of the Working Parties. London, 1963. 3. Br. med. J. 1965, ii, 1112. 4. Report of the Medical School Advisory Committee, University of Nottingham, June, 1965.