- Email: [email protected]
DRUGGISTS AND CERTIFICATES OF DEATH.
LORD HERSCHELL AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON.
1198
among the poor. But little imagination is neces- institution like the University of Berlin or that of Strasburg. do no imperial work, and the sary to guess what they must be. No wonder, then, that These universities, however, is unique in having taken as its rôle in statesmen begin to think of supplying this lack in the existing university education the duty of examining candidates and fixing their national service. Wherever the money is to come from, curricula of study throughout a vast empire. Lord Herschell it should be forthcoming for necessary purposes. We hold says that it ought to be a condition that if any change is it to be distinctly the duty of the State to provide made in constitution such change should not render the necessary and ready medical help, including nurses, for the University less fit and able to discharge the work which it has done so well for all these years. The whole of the tenour of poor even in remote parts. In sparse country districts, in the report of the Commission, however, is to the advantage islands or highlands, no very great expenditure would be of the teachers and of their internal or collegiate students; necessary to place skilled medical assistance and a skilled whilst the claims of the external, or private-study, candidates nurse at the service of the poorest and so save many a life are obviously placed in a subsidiary position. Again, the that is now lost or rendered irretrievably miserable. Such maintenance of the present pass standard at the level of an an establishment of medicine as a public institution, pro- honours’ standard, as laid down so rigidly by Lord Herschell, vided it is done on generous principles and with due restric- will maintain the injustice to the London medical student, which it should be one of the first objects of the University tions in the selection of cases, will be to our credit as a State, to remove. and is indeed a thing to which we are committed, apart from the Welsh and Scotch Disestablishment Bills. But, while such DRUGGISTS AND CERTIFICATES OF DEATH.
of
women
’
___
should be generously made, care should be taken to do nothing that people can do for themselves. By all means let Medicine and its resources of skill and kindness and trained nursing be established for extraordinary cases and in remote parts, but let the voluntary principle be left intact for all ordinary people in the ordinary circumstances of life. We are satisfied that it is better as regards the ordinary ailments of families that they should make their own arrangements and have their own private medical attendant. It is better as respects the preservation of that independence which is so valuable an element in character, and it is better in their medical interest. They fare better at the hands of a private practitioner, who learns to take a deeper and more continuous interest in them and their families than is to be expected in a mere public official.
provision for extreme
cases
Annotations. "
Ne quid nimis."
LORD HERSCHELL AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON. LORD HERSCHELL, at his first appearance as Chancellor of the University on a presentation day, made a strong, but very temperate, speech in favour of the reconstruction of the University. He fully recognised that there was a large number of the graduates who were of opinion that the scheme proposed by the Gresham Commission would be prejudicial to the present work of the University and, instead of reccmmending a series of compromises on points which were absolutely opposed, suggested that the best solution would be the reference of all differences to an independent body-we presume, a Statutory CommisA Statutory Commission, however, when apsion. pointed, cannot alter the main lines of the scheme and must limit itself to making arrangement for the best working out of details. Everyone is agreed, as Lord lIerschell says, that the existing University is doing a great imperial work, but that there is also a great demand for a teaching university to bring together the teachers and the educational means and opportunities of this huge metropolis. The essential question at issue is, Can these duties be better fulfilled by one or two universities ? Most of the Commissioners, and the majority of the Senate of the University and of the teachers in the metropolis, deprecate the foundation of a second university and look forward to the creation of a great
SIR BENJAMIN WARD RICHARDSON has lately suggested in The Asclepiad that druggists should have legal power to pre. scribe over the counter. We have generally great pleasure in reading anything suggested by Sir Benjamin Richardson, but here we must join issue with him in a very decided way. We cannot see what difference the counter makes. A prescription over the counter may be as fatal, as much out of place, as one in a house. Besides, what guarantee has he that the counter would act as a sufficient line of demarcation? At an inquest at Birmingham it has just transpired that a druggist promised to visit a child, for whom he prescribed, if the patient grew worse, and it even seems that he granted a certificate of death, and the mother said that he promised to do so in the first instance. We feel sure that a little reflection will convince Sir Benjamin Richardson that he has made a dangerous and a retrograde suggestion, and that he will reconsider it. Surely the virtue of all recent medical legislation is not to be compromised in this fashion. BARRACK ACCOMMODATION. MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN, in answer to questions from Mr. Hanbury and Colonel Lockwood in the House of Commons on the 4th inst., explained what were the bath and ablutionary arrangements and the provision of day-rooms in barracks, together with the supply of bedding and sheets for soldiers. As ’regards the first, he said that in the new barracks at Aldershot flues had been let into the walls of the kitchens, and baths are provided by regimental arrangements. Hot water was not generally supplied at the public expense to bath and ablution rooms except in the case of barracks Most medical officers, we where recruits are received. have held the long opinion that in this respect the suspect, is behind the times, and we agree with them. quite army The bath-rooms in barracks are rarely used, for the simple reason that they are generally damp, cold, comfortless places and hot water cannot be obtained. They may be used in summer, but they are almost certainly not in winter, and the money laid out on their provision is consequently to a great extent wasted. It is not to be expected that soldiers will leave their barrack rooms and cross an open space during the winter season for the purpose of taking a cold bath ; indeed, we question whether it is at all desirable that they should do so in the case of regiments who have served in hot climates abroad. There should, in our opinion, be an opportunity afforded in every barrack for a soldier to have a warm bath once a week. This seems to us necessary merely as a matter of health and cleanliness. The bath-houses in barracks are usually in cold, draughty, and exposed positions, and are often dark or insufficiently lighted, and without comfortable and proper convep.ience8
1198
among the poor. But little imagination is neces- institution like the University of Berlin or that of Strasburg. do no imperial work, and the sary to guess what they must be. No wonder, then, that These universities, however, is unique in having taken as its rôle in statesmen begin to think of supplying this lack in the existing university education the duty of examining candidates and fixing their national service. Wherever the money is to come from, curricula of study throughout a vast empire. Lord Herschell it should be forthcoming for necessary purposes. We hold says that it ought to be a condition that if any change is it to be distinctly the duty of the State to provide made in constitution such change should not render the necessary and ready medical help, including nurses, for the University less fit and able to discharge the work which it has done so well for all these years. The whole of the tenour of poor even in remote parts. In sparse country districts, in the report of the Commission, however, is to the advantage islands or highlands, no very great expenditure would be of the teachers and of their internal or collegiate students; necessary to place skilled medical assistance and a skilled whilst the claims of the external, or private-study, candidates nurse at the service of the poorest and so save many a life are obviously placed in a subsidiary position. Again, the that is now lost or rendered irretrievably miserable. Such maintenance of the present pass standard at the level of an an establishment of medicine as a public institution, pro- honours’ standard, as laid down so rigidly by Lord Herschell, vided it is done on generous principles and with due restric- will maintain the injustice to the London medical student, which it should be one of the first objects of the University tions in the selection of cases, will be to our credit as a State, to remove. and is indeed a thing to which we are committed, apart from the Welsh and Scotch Disestablishment Bills. But, while such DRUGGISTS AND CERTIFICATES OF DEATH.
of
women
’
___
should be generously made, care should be taken to do nothing that people can do for themselves. By all means let Medicine and its resources of skill and kindness and trained nursing be established for extraordinary cases and in remote parts, but let the voluntary principle be left intact for all ordinary people in the ordinary circumstances of life. We are satisfied that it is better as regards the ordinary ailments of families that they should make their own arrangements and have their own private medical attendant. It is better as respects the preservation of that independence which is so valuable an element in character, and it is better in their medical interest. They fare better at the hands of a private practitioner, who learns to take a deeper and more continuous interest in them and their families than is to be expected in a mere public official.
provision for extreme
cases
Annotations. "
Ne quid nimis."
LORD HERSCHELL AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON. LORD HERSCHELL, at his first appearance as Chancellor of the University on a presentation day, made a strong, but very temperate, speech in favour of the reconstruction of the University. He fully recognised that there was a large number of the graduates who were of opinion that the scheme proposed by the Gresham Commission would be prejudicial to the present work of the University and, instead of reccmmending a series of compromises on points which were absolutely opposed, suggested that the best solution would be the reference of all differences to an independent body-we presume, a Statutory CommisA Statutory Commission, however, when apsion. pointed, cannot alter the main lines of the scheme and must limit itself to making arrangement for the best working out of details. Everyone is agreed, as Lord lIerschell says, that the existing University is doing a great imperial work, but that there is also a great demand for a teaching university to bring together the teachers and the educational means and opportunities of this huge metropolis. The essential question at issue is, Can these duties be better fulfilled by one or two universities ? Most of the Commissioners, and the majority of the Senate of the University and of the teachers in the metropolis, deprecate the foundation of a second university and look forward to the creation of a great
SIR BENJAMIN WARD RICHARDSON has lately suggested in The Asclepiad that druggists should have legal power to pre. scribe over the counter. We have generally great pleasure in reading anything suggested by Sir Benjamin Richardson, but here we must join issue with him in a very decided way. We cannot see what difference the counter makes. A prescription over the counter may be as fatal, as much out of place, as one in a house. Besides, what guarantee has he that the counter would act as a sufficient line of demarcation? At an inquest at Birmingham it has just transpired that a druggist promised to visit a child, for whom he prescribed, if the patient grew worse, and it even seems that he granted a certificate of death, and the mother said that he promised to do so in the first instance. We feel sure that a little reflection will convince Sir Benjamin Richardson that he has made a dangerous and a retrograde suggestion, and that he will reconsider it. Surely the virtue of all recent medical legislation is not to be compromised in this fashion. BARRACK ACCOMMODATION. MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN, in answer to questions from Mr. Hanbury and Colonel Lockwood in the House of Commons on the 4th inst., explained what were the bath and ablutionary arrangements and the provision of day-rooms in barracks, together with the supply of bedding and sheets for soldiers. As ’regards the first, he said that in the new barracks at Aldershot flues had been let into the walls of the kitchens, and baths are provided by regimental arrangements. Hot water was not generally supplied at the public expense to bath and ablution rooms except in the case of barracks Most medical officers, we where recruits are received. have held the long opinion that in this respect the suspect, is behind the times, and we agree with them. quite army The bath-rooms in barracks are rarely used, for the simple reason that they are generally damp, cold, comfortless places and hot water cannot be obtained. They may be used in summer, but they are almost certainly not in winter, and the money laid out on their provision is consequently to a great extent wasted. It is not to be expected that soldiers will leave their barrack rooms and cross an open space during the winter season for the purpose of taking a cold bath ; indeed, we question whether it is at all desirable that they should do so in the case of regiments who have served in hot climates abroad. There should, in our opinion, be an opportunity afforded in every barrack for a soldier to have a warm bath once a week. This seems to us necessary merely as a matter of health and cleanliness. The bath-houses in barracks are usually in cold, draughty, and exposed positions, and are often dark or insufficiently lighted, and without comfortable and proper convep.ience8