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EARL HAIG'S APPEAL.
1066 Council during this week. The Committee and the Council will learn with deep regret of the death, a few days ago. of our much-valued Inspector of Public Health Examinations, Dr. Robert Bruce Low, on whose reports the new Rules have been based. " With reference to the revision of the curriculum for ordinary medical qualifications, the Education Committee has held more than one special meeting during the recess. It has succeeded in bringing into succinct and orderly form the main recommendations of the many expert sub-conxmittees which were requested to consider the proper content and relations of the successive educational stages of the professional course. Much thought has been given to the sequence and interconnexion of the several subjects of study, and to the relating of all to the preservation of health as well as to the skilled observation and treatment of actual disease. " The report of the Education Committee will, I understand, put forward a series of resolutions, indicating its view of what the course of professional study for a registrable qualification should comprise in order that it may be deemed by the Council ’ sufficient ’ for the purpose of Section 20 of the Medical Act, 1858. That purpose is ’to secure the possession by persons obtaining such qualification of the requisite knowledge and skill for the efficient " practice of their profession.’
Correspondence. "Audi alteram partem."
EARL HAIG’S APPEAL. To the Editor of THE LANCET. SIR,-I append a letter which I received upon my return from accompanying the King through the British cemeteries in France and Belgium. It is a call to other parents from one who is worthy of her son, and no words of mine should or could be added to amplify its sincere brevity. I ask you to bring it to the notice of your readers, many of whom I feel sure will desire to add their names to the roll of the Remembrance League.
With reference to the revision of the curriculum for ordinary medical qualifications, much thought, the President said, had been given to the matter by the Education Committee, whose report will put forward a series of resolutions the purpose of which is " to secure the possession by the persons obtaining such qualifications of the requisite knowledge and skill for the efficient practice of their profession." Finance and Other Business. The President was able to announce a satisfactory financial position, for the surplus income of the General and Branch Councils is £3264, which is more than in any year since 1915, or about twice the average annual surplus for the past seven years. This result is in a measure due to the greater number (1410) of practitioners registered in 1921, as compared with 1100 in 1920. These figures confirm closely the forecasts furnished by the Council to the GovernThe number of ment during the years of the war. medical students registered in 1921 is 1808, as compared with 2531 in 1920, and 3420 in 1910. Though the number is still higher than the average (1421) for five years before the war, the relief thus afforded to the overstrained medical schools and colleges cannot but be welcome. TUESDAY, MAY 23RD. After the election of the various Standing Committees, the Council proceeded to the consideration of penal cases. Five cases came before the Council, and two names were erased from the Register-viz., Edwin Ernest Willis, convicted of felony at Durham earlier in the year ; and Richard William Starkie, convicted of felony at the Central Criminal Court last year.
Granville Park, Blackheath, S.B. DEAR EARL HAIG,-Their Majesties have again displayed a great understanding by making a pilgrimage to somewhere in France, somewhere ’which is for ever England.’ Day by day as my husband and I read of the simple tributes our King and Queen paid, we felt that they were paying these on our behalf. That surely must be the feeling in the hearts of a very large number of ’ sorrowfully-proud ’ parents. In order to associate ourselves yet more closely with their pilgrimage, we are sending this small donation to your office (Earl Haig’s Appeal, 1, Regentstreet, London), believing that our son would wish that our token of rememberance should be coupled with our gratitude towards his comrades, many of whom are suffering poverty in consequence of their war services. If you think that other parents would wish to associate themselves with the ’ Royal Tribute’ in this manner, please OUR PILGRIMAGE." make use of this letter. "
So
speaks
a
mother of I
a
am,
hero who fell in
Sir,
vours
our
defence.
faithfullv, tiAI0, j:i’.-lVl.
A PLEA FOR A STANDARD TEXT-BOOK OF SURGERY FOR EXAMINATION PURPOSES.
To the Editor of THE LANCET. SIR,-Only a careful comparison of the text-books of surgery, most popular at the present day, will convince surgeons how contradictory are their stateThe quotations given below will show this ments. quite clearly. The result of this disagreement is that in any surgical examination the student may give the answer which he is warranted in giving from the text-book from which he has studied, and yet it may not be the answer which the examiner considers correct. A student who had studied some other textbook would be equally justified in giving some quite different answer which his text-book might teach him was the correct one. It is sometimes said that this does not matter, because a student can always give his authority for any statement he makes, and that if the examiner understands that he has really been as taught to regard as correct, what he himself But I do not believe error, he will allow for that. that many of the examiners in surgery in this country realise how diverse are the views expressed in the LITERARY INTELLIGENCE.-Messrs. William Hodge text-books, and how a candidate may express quite correctly the view he has been taught, and yet the and Co., i.td., announce for early publication a volume of Notable British Trials Series, dealing with the trial of George examiner may consider him wrong. In the examination Joseph Smith (the trial popularh known as the brides in of answers in a written paper, there is, of course, no the bath case), edited by Eric R. Watson, barrister-at-law. opportunity of asking a candidate where he obtained -The Oxford University Press announce the forthcoming information which the examiner does not consider publication of Arab Medicine and Surgery : A Study of the correct. In a viva voce, the candidate may not know Healing Art in Algeria," by M. W. Hilton-Simpson, B.Sc. that the information he gives is not acceptable to the BOGNOR WAR MEMORIAL HOSPITAL.-This hospital examiner. I think it is a mistake to conduct an was opened for patients in July, 1H1H, its foundation examination as if it were a teaching class. If a candidate having been largely due to the munificence of --Mr. James a wrong statement I think it is better not to Fleming, of Aldwick Grange, who gave 22000 towardsthe correct him, better not even to let him know he has purchase of the building and 25000 to inauguratean made a wrong statement, or it may discourage endowment fund. The town supplied £2000 to complete the purchase and the furnishing as a war memorial. At the him, and prevent him from doing as well as he might annual meeting on May 17th Mr. Fleming said that the otherwise do in answering subsequent questions. Recognising the fact that at the present time a possibility of making an addition to the hospital to provide for paying patients had been under consideration, but the student will tind widely divergent statements in the more practicable course seemed to be the erection of a new text-books what can be done to give him a fairer hospital building, and the disposal of the present one as a examination test ? It seems to me that there should nursing home or a maternity hospital. Mr. Fleming said be one recognised text-book of surgery, and that its that the question of adding a maternity department to the should, for examination purposes, be looked Bognor Hospital had been negatived. The balance in hand statements as authoritative, and that the candidate should upon the was £334 Is. 3d., and this despite the year’s working on not be expected to know more than the information increased cost-£1236 0s. 10d., against £1121 in 1920.
regards
the
’’
"
"
makes
Correspondence. "Audi alteram partem."
EARL HAIG’S APPEAL. To the Editor of THE LANCET. SIR,-I append a letter which I received upon my return from accompanying the King through the British cemeteries in France and Belgium. It is a call to other parents from one who is worthy of her son, and no words of mine should or could be added to amplify its sincere brevity. I ask you to bring it to the notice of your readers, many of whom I feel sure will desire to add their names to the roll of the Remembrance League.
With reference to the revision of the curriculum for ordinary medical qualifications, much thought, the President said, had been given to the matter by the Education Committee, whose report will put forward a series of resolutions the purpose of which is " to secure the possession by the persons obtaining such qualifications of the requisite knowledge and skill for the efficient practice of their profession." Finance and Other Business. The President was able to announce a satisfactory financial position, for the surplus income of the General and Branch Councils is £3264, which is more than in any year since 1915, or about twice the average annual surplus for the past seven years. This result is in a measure due to the greater number (1410) of practitioners registered in 1921, as compared with 1100 in 1920. These figures confirm closely the forecasts furnished by the Council to the GovernThe number of ment during the years of the war. medical students registered in 1921 is 1808, as compared with 2531 in 1920, and 3420 in 1910. Though the number is still higher than the average (1421) for five years before the war, the relief thus afforded to the overstrained medical schools and colleges cannot but be welcome. TUESDAY, MAY 23RD. After the election of the various Standing Committees, the Council proceeded to the consideration of penal cases. Five cases came before the Council, and two names were erased from the Register-viz., Edwin Ernest Willis, convicted of felony at Durham earlier in the year ; and Richard William Starkie, convicted of felony at the Central Criminal Court last year.
Granville Park, Blackheath, S.B. DEAR EARL HAIG,-Their Majesties have again displayed a great understanding by making a pilgrimage to somewhere in France, somewhere ’which is for ever England.’ Day by day as my husband and I read of the simple tributes our King and Queen paid, we felt that they were paying these on our behalf. That surely must be the feeling in the hearts of a very large number of ’ sorrowfully-proud ’ parents. In order to associate ourselves yet more closely with their pilgrimage, we are sending this small donation to your office (Earl Haig’s Appeal, 1, Regentstreet, London), believing that our son would wish that our token of rememberance should be coupled with our gratitude towards his comrades, many of whom are suffering poverty in consequence of their war services. If you think that other parents would wish to associate themselves with the ’ Royal Tribute’ in this manner, please OUR PILGRIMAGE." make use of this letter. "
So
speaks
a
mother of I
a
am,
hero who fell in
Sir,
vours
our
defence.
faithfullv, tiAI0, j:i’.-lVl.
A PLEA FOR A STANDARD TEXT-BOOK OF SURGERY FOR EXAMINATION PURPOSES.
To the Editor of THE LANCET. SIR,-Only a careful comparison of the text-books of surgery, most popular at the present day, will convince surgeons how contradictory are their stateThe quotations given below will show this ments. quite clearly. The result of this disagreement is that in any surgical examination the student may give the answer which he is warranted in giving from the text-book from which he has studied, and yet it may not be the answer which the examiner considers correct. A student who had studied some other textbook would be equally justified in giving some quite different answer which his text-book might teach him was the correct one. It is sometimes said that this does not matter, because a student can always give his authority for any statement he makes, and that if the examiner understands that he has really been as taught to regard as correct, what he himself But I do not believe error, he will allow for that. that many of the examiners in surgery in this country realise how diverse are the views expressed in the LITERARY INTELLIGENCE.-Messrs. William Hodge text-books, and how a candidate may express quite correctly the view he has been taught, and yet the and Co., i.td., announce for early publication a volume of Notable British Trials Series, dealing with the trial of George examiner may consider him wrong. In the examination Joseph Smith (the trial popularh known as the brides in of answers in a written paper, there is, of course, no the bath case), edited by Eric R. Watson, barrister-at-law. opportunity of asking a candidate where he obtained -The Oxford University Press announce the forthcoming information which the examiner does not consider publication of Arab Medicine and Surgery : A Study of the correct. In a viva voce, the candidate may not know Healing Art in Algeria," by M. W. Hilton-Simpson, B.Sc. that the information he gives is not acceptable to the BOGNOR WAR MEMORIAL HOSPITAL.-This hospital examiner. I think it is a mistake to conduct an was opened for patients in July, 1H1H, its foundation examination as if it were a teaching class. If a candidate having been largely due to the munificence of --Mr. James a wrong statement I think it is better not to Fleming, of Aldwick Grange, who gave 22000 towardsthe correct him, better not even to let him know he has purchase of the building and 25000 to inauguratean made a wrong statement, or it may discourage endowment fund. The town supplied £2000 to complete the purchase and the furnishing as a war memorial. At the him, and prevent him from doing as well as he might annual meeting on May 17th Mr. Fleming said that the otherwise do in answering subsequent questions. Recognising the fact that at the present time a possibility of making an addition to the hospital to provide for paying patients had been under consideration, but the student will tind widely divergent statements in the more practicable course seemed to be the erection of a new text-books what can be done to give him a fairer hospital building, and the disposal of the present one as a examination test ? It seems to me that there should nursing home or a maternity hospital. Mr. Fleming said be one recognised text-book of surgery, and that its that the question of adding a maternity department to the should, for examination purposes, be looked Bognor Hospital had been negatived. The balance in hand statements as authoritative, and that the candidate should upon the was £334 Is. 3d., and this despite the year’s working on not be expected to know more than the information increased cost-£1236 0s. 10d., against £1121 in 1920.
regards
the
’’
"
"
makes