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EGGS AS GERM-CARRIERS.
NOTES, COMMENTS,
AND ABSTRACTS.
1441
or in connexion with general neurological or general had the spout higher up, and to have been the hospitals. There is a good deal to be said in favour precursors of the teapot. of each view, but it would take me too far afield to Chapters of particular interest to medical readers discuss the point. I can see no reason why a are those dealing respectively with seventeenth psychiatric clinic should not be organised in all these century drugs, and with the inscriptions on the jars, different spheres. The great factor essential to the to which an excellent key is supplied by Mr. C. J. ideal one is that there should be ample opportunity Thomson, in a glossary. It is disappointing that for team-work, if necessary, and that there should so far no jars have come to hand bearing labels be intimate cooperation with other branches of indicating that they were employed for " oil of foxes " medicine and surgery. Psychological medicine must or " oil of puppy dogs " ; nor has any suitably not stand out as an isolated department of knowledge. inscribed receptacle been found for storing " Viper Were it not for the inevitable question of finance, all lozenges " which, according to Mr. Howard, were other difficulties would soon be swept away. a renowned specific for the plague. On the other hand the Howard collection includes a seventeenth century drug jar of Lambeth delft inscribed P. MACRI which appears to be the powder of a Peruvian bark FOR MOTHERS. LECTURES used as a febrifuge and introduced into this country DURING the past few years a great many lectures about the same date as cinchona. This must be the have been’arranged for the mothers of elementary gem of the collection. school-children, with the object of helping the parent to meet the difficult questions propounded by the TUBERCULOSIS SCHEMES. child. The mothers who send their children to private A HANDBOOK issued by the National Association and public schools are asking why similar help cannot I the Prevention of Tuberculosis1 of which the price be given to them, and in response to this demand the has been reduced in the sixth edition from 7s. 6d. National Council for Mental Hygiene and the British Social Hygiene Council are jointly arranging a series to 5s., provides a complete directory of tuberculosis of four lectures to be given on the mornings of work throughout the country. It contains reliable Feb. 23rd, and March 1st, 8th, and 15th at 11.15 A.M. information on the operation of tuberculosis schemes at the Ladies’ Carlton Club. The lecturers are in Great Britain and Ireland, also the only published Sir J. Arthur Thomson, Dr. Elizabeth Sloan Chesser, list of tuberculosis officers and the only complete list Prof. Winifred Cullis, and Dr. H. Crichton Miller. At of residential institutions in the country. The each lecture a physiological film will be shown, but volume forms an indispensable work of reference for need not necessarily be seen by those who do not care all engaged in the campaign against tuberculosis for films. Ample time will be allowed for questions. and in social work generally. It is the only book To help the funds of the Councils a fee of one guineais wherein practitioners can see at a glance what to be charged for the course. Medical men are asked machinery exists for the treatment of the disease in to make these lectures known to those of their patients any given area.
for
who would welcome them. EARLY ENGLISH DRUG JARS.
EGGS AS GERM-CARRIERS.
FOLLOWING on Dr. C. Horwitz’s letter in our issue of Sept. 19th (p. 662) describing bacterial infection of ANardent amateur collector of English delft duck eggs, Dr. R. L. Wason (Bath) writes : " I have ware of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries a foreign body in an egg. It was a has placed us in his debt for a fascinating account only once found black." We this of submitted maize, grain perfectly of drug jars, or apothecaries pots, posset pots, candle remarkable observation to Prof. F. A. E. Crew, also wine wine describes and and cups, cups, jars, director of the Institute of Animal Genetics at pill slabs and a barber’s bowl of 1683.1 The work Edinburgh, who writes : "I think it would be possible is admirably illustrated by 23 plates of which two in a hen’s egg, although I are in colour, the rest in monochrome ; the objects to find a grain of maize have never before heard of such a thing happening. for the most from Mr. Howard’s portrayed being part The maize get into the cloaca, and thence up private collection. He acknowledges valuable help the oviductmight and become incorporated in the egg. received from published works and from experts a likely explanation of your attached to the various museums, explaining that This would be quite the chief object of his book is to help others who may correspondent’s experience." be possessed of similar pieces of what is usually ELEPHANTIASIS OF THE SCROTUM. called Lambeth delft to date these articles. To this end he has made a careful detailed chronological Mr. St. John Ward, professor of surgery in the survey of the evidence, and this survey is the more American University of Beirut, Syria, writing on helpful since many of the pieces illustrated are the operative treatment of Elephantiasis of the dated. The book is more than a work of reference Scrotum,22 states that in 90 per cent of cases of and a guide, for Mr. Howard has a happy flair for elephantiasis arabum no micronlariae can be demondescribing the form and decoration of his treasures strated in the patient’s blood, and that doubt has and of conveying something of the charm of these therefore been expressed as to whether the condition quaint homely products of the old English potters can be definitely attributed to filariasis. He believes and their decorative artists. Mr. Howard boldly that it is undoubtedly an infection and he describes undertakes the differential diagnosis between a the clinical manifestations in detail, noting that posset pot and a candle cup. The dictionary defines after the febrile attacks have ceased-indeed, even a posset as " a dietetic mixture consisting of milk years later-the localised lymphangitic area shows curdled with an acidulous liquor such as wine, ale, characteristic pathological changes. In fcrotal or vinegar." Mr. Howard remarks that " this elephantiasis surgery offers great relief to the sufferers, furious and repellant liquid seems to have been very he says, and is attended with great success in the popular with our hardy forbears." Candle was hands of experienced operators. It is interesting any warm drink for an invalid. While both beverages to note that Mr. Ward favours spinal anaesthesia in were probably drunk out of vessels with corners, Mr. these cases, and as the operation is a long one he Howard thinks that the English were the first to advocates subarachnoid injection of tropococaine invent vessels with the spout springing from the base and drawing the liquid from the bottom1 Handbook of Tuberculosis Schemes for Great Britain and the candle cup-precisely in the form of the modern Ireland. Sixth edition. National Association for the Preven1931. 5s. invalid’s feeding cup. Posset pots appear to have tion of Tuberculosis. 2 Comptes Rendus du Congrès International de Médecine Tropicale et d’Hygiène, Tome iii. Published by Mohamed 1 Early English Drug Jars. By Geoffrey Eliot Howard. Bey Khalil, M.D., M.R.C.P., Secretary-General of the Congress. London : The Medici Society. 1931. Pp. 50. Imprimerie 10s. 6d. Nationale, Cairo. 1931. Pp. 1995. P.T. 50.
AND ABSTRACTS.
1441
or in connexion with general neurological or general had the spout higher up, and to have been the hospitals. There is a good deal to be said in favour precursors of the teapot. of each view, but it would take me too far afield to Chapters of particular interest to medical readers discuss the point. I can see no reason why a are those dealing respectively with seventeenth psychiatric clinic should not be organised in all these century drugs, and with the inscriptions on the jars, different spheres. The great factor essential to the to which an excellent key is supplied by Mr. C. J. ideal one is that there should be ample opportunity Thomson, in a glossary. It is disappointing that for team-work, if necessary, and that there should so far no jars have come to hand bearing labels be intimate cooperation with other branches of indicating that they were employed for " oil of foxes " medicine and surgery. Psychological medicine must or " oil of puppy dogs " ; nor has any suitably not stand out as an isolated department of knowledge. inscribed receptacle been found for storing " Viper Were it not for the inevitable question of finance, all lozenges " which, according to Mr. Howard, were other difficulties would soon be swept away. a renowned specific for the plague. On the other hand the Howard collection includes a seventeenth century drug jar of Lambeth delft inscribed P. MACRI which appears to be the powder of a Peruvian bark FOR MOTHERS. LECTURES used as a febrifuge and introduced into this country DURING the past few years a great many lectures about the same date as cinchona. This must be the have been’arranged for the mothers of elementary gem of the collection. school-children, with the object of helping the parent to meet the difficult questions propounded by the TUBERCULOSIS SCHEMES. child. The mothers who send their children to private A HANDBOOK issued by the National Association and public schools are asking why similar help cannot I the Prevention of Tuberculosis1 of which the price be given to them, and in response to this demand the has been reduced in the sixth edition from 7s. 6d. National Council for Mental Hygiene and the British Social Hygiene Council are jointly arranging a series to 5s., provides a complete directory of tuberculosis of four lectures to be given on the mornings of work throughout the country. It contains reliable Feb. 23rd, and March 1st, 8th, and 15th at 11.15 A.M. information on the operation of tuberculosis schemes at the Ladies’ Carlton Club. The lecturers are in Great Britain and Ireland, also the only published Sir J. Arthur Thomson, Dr. Elizabeth Sloan Chesser, list of tuberculosis officers and the only complete list Prof. Winifred Cullis, and Dr. H. Crichton Miller. At of residential institutions in the country. The each lecture a physiological film will be shown, but volume forms an indispensable work of reference for need not necessarily be seen by those who do not care all engaged in the campaign against tuberculosis for films. Ample time will be allowed for questions. and in social work generally. It is the only book To help the funds of the Councils a fee of one guineais wherein practitioners can see at a glance what to be charged for the course. Medical men are asked machinery exists for the treatment of the disease in to make these lectures known to those of their patients any given area.
for
who would welcome them. EARLY ENGLISH DRUG JARS.
EGGS AS GERM-CARRIERS.
FOLLOWING on Dr. C. Horwitz’s letter in our issue of Sept. 19th (p. 662) describing bacterial infection of ANardent amateur collector of English delft duck eggs, Dr. R. L. Wason (Bath) writes : " I have ware of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries a foreign body in an egg. It was a has placed us in his debt for a fascinating account only once found black." We this of submitted maize, grain perfectly of drug jars, or apothecaries pots, posset pots, candle remarkable observation to Prof. F. A. E. Crew, also wine wine describes and and cups, cups, jars, director of the Institute of Animal Genetics at pill slabs and a barber’s bowl of 1683.1 The work Edinburgh, who writes : "I think it would be possible is admirably illustrated by 23 plates of which two in a hen’s egg, although I are in colour, the rest in monochrome ; the objects to find a grain of maize have never before heard of such a thing happening. for the most from Mr. Howard’s portrayed being part The maize get into the cloaca, and thence up private collection. He acknowledges valuable help the oviductmight and become incorporated in the egg. received from published works and from experts a likely explanation of your attached to the various museums, explaining that This would be quite the chief object of his book is to help others who may correspondent’s experience." be possessed of similar pieces of what is usually ELEPHANTIASIS OF THE SCROTUM. called Lambeth delft to date these articles. To this end he has made a careful detailed chronological Mr. St. John Ward, professor of surgery in the survey of the evidence, and this survey is the more American University of Beirut, Syria, writing on helpful since many of the pieces illustrated are the operative treatment of Elephantiasis of the dated. The book is more than a work of reference Scrotum,22 states that in 90 per cent of cases of and a guide, for Mr. Howard has a happy flair for elephantiasis arabum no micronlariae can be demondescribing the form and decoration of his treasures strated in the patient’s blood, and that doubt has and of conveying something of the charm of these therefore been expressed as to whether the condition quaint homely products of the old English potters can be definitely attributed to filariasis. He believes and their decorative artists. Mr. Howard boldly that it is undoubtedly an infection and he describes undertakes the differential diagnosis between a the clinical manifestations in detail, noting that posset pot and a candle cup. The dictionary defines after the febrile attacks have ceased-indeed, even a posset as " a dietetic mixture consisting of milk years later-the localised lymphangitic area shows curdled with an acidulous liquor such as wine, ale, characteristic pathological changes. In fcrotal or vinegar." Mr. Howard remarks that " this elephantiasis surgery offers great relief to the sufferers, furious and repellant liquid seems to have been very he says, and is attended with great success in the popular with our hardy forbears." Candle was hands of experienced operators. It is interesting any warm drink for an invalid. While both beverages to note that Mr. Ward favours spinal anaesthesia in were probably drunk out of vessels with corners, Mr. these cases, and as the operation is a long one he Howard thinks that the English were the first to advocates subarachnoid injection of tropococaine invent vessels with the spout springing from the base and drawing the liquid from the bottom1 Handbook of Tuberculosis Schemes for Great Britain and the candle cup-precisely in the form of the modern Ireland. Sixth edition. National Association for the Preven1931. 5s. invalid’s feeding cup. Posset pots appear to have tion of Tuberculosis. 2 Comptes Rendus du Congrès International de Médecine Tropicale et d’Hygiène, Tome iii. Published by Mohamed 1 Early English Drug Jars. By Geoffrey Eliot Howard. Bey Khalil, M.D., M.R.C.P., Secretary-General of the Congress. London : The Medici Society. 1931. Pp. 50. Imprimerie 10s. 6d. Nationale, Cairo. 1931. Pp. 1995. P.T. 50.