FROM THE LANCET, SATURDAY, Nov. 20th, 1830.

THE SERVICES.-LOOKING BACK.

Edward Middleton Newland, Lewis Albert Hodgkinson Lack, Kenneth William Mackenzie, Narindra Singh Sodhi, William Jackson Powell, and William Cowan Gray. The King has approved of the retirement of the following officers :Lieutenant-Colonel Kpvasji Cursetji Sanjana (dated Oct. 22nd, 1908); and Captain Donald Steel (dated Nov. lst,

1908).

ARMY MEDICAL RESERVE

OF

1551

Captain William Young, to be Major (dated Sept. 25th, 1908). Lieutenant Robert Cross to be Captain (dated Sept. 25th, 1908). Surgeon-Lieutenant John Alexander Nixon from the 4th Battalion, The Gloucestershire Regiment, to be Lieutenant (dated April 1st, 1908). 3rd Highland Field Ambulance: The appointment to a Lieutenancy of Sidney Watson Smith bears date August lst, 1908.

OFFICERS.

lst East Lancashire Field Ambulance : Captain Joseph F. Surgeon-Lieutenant-Colonel Quinton Chalmers, having in his commission the ceases to Wright resigns his commission (dated August 29th, 1908). Volunteers, belong resigned 3rd East Lancashire Field Ambulance : Captain Robert W. to the Army Medical Reserve of Officers (dated Jan. 21st, Beesley resigns his commission (dated August 20th, 1908). 1908). 5th London Field Ambulance: Lieutenant William Cameron TERRITORIAL FORCE. Macaulay from the Royal Army Medical Corps, Territorial Injantry. to be Lieutenant (dated Oct. 7th, 1908). Force, 6th Battalion, Cheshire Regiment: The undermentioned 3rd Welsh Field Ambulance : Surgeon-Major Arthur L. officers, from the 4th Volunteer Battalion, The Cheshire Jones from the 6th (Glamorgan) Battalion, Welsh Regiment, Regiment, are appointed to the battalion, with rank and to be Lieutenant-Colonel (dated April lst, 1908). Surgeonprecedence as in the Volunteer Force (dated April 1st, Captain George A. Stephens from the 6th (Glamorgan) 1908):-Surgeon-Captain Ralph Bennett Sidebottom and Battalion, Welsh Regiment, to be Captain (dated April lst, Surgeon-Captain Eugene Charles McCarthy. 4th (Denbigh- 1908). Surgeon-Lieutenant Charles L. Isaac from the 6th shire) Battalion, Royal Welsh Fusiliers : The under- (Glamorgan), Battalion, Welsh Regiment, to be Lieutenant mentioned officers, from the lst Volunteer Battalion, The (dated April 1st, 1908). Royal Welsh Fusiliers, are appointed to the battalion, with VOLUNTEER CORPS. in the Volunteer Force (dated rank and precedence as : 5th Rifle: (Glasgow Highland) Volunteer Battalion, The April lst, 1908) :-Surgeon-Captain Richard Drinkwater and Highland Light Infantry : Surgeon-Lieutenant-Colonel Surgeon-Lieutenant Jonas William Anderson. 4th BatBell Todd resigns his commission, with permission George undermentioned Welsh The officers, talion, Regiment: from the lst (Pembrokeshire) Volunteer Battalion, The to retain his rank and to wear the prescribed uniform Welsh Regiment, are appointed to the battalion, with rank (dated March 31st, 1908). 14th Middlesex (Inns of Court) and precedence as in the Volunteer Force (dated April 1st, Volunteer Rifle Corps : Surgeon-Captain Arthur M. Ware his commission (dated March 31st, 1908). 2nd (Earl 1908):-Surgeon-Major Evan Evans and Surgeon-Lieutenant resigns William Reginald Eyton Williams. 5th Battalion, Welsh of Chester’s) Volunteer Battalion, The Cheshire Regiment : officer resigns his commission, with Regiment : The undermentioned officers, from the 2nd The undermentioned to his rank and to wear the prescribed retain permission Volunteer Battalion, The Welsh Regiment, are appointed to the battalion, with rank and precedence as in the Volunteer uniform (dated March 31st, 1908): Surgeon-LieutenantForce (dated April lst, 1908) :-Surgeon-Captain Rhys Colonel Alexander Hamilton. lst (Brecknockshire) Volunteer David Morgan and Surgeon-Lieutenant Evan James Battalion, The South Wales Borderers : The undermentioned Trevor Jones. 4th Battalion, the King’s (Shropshire officer resigns his commission (dated April lst, 1908):Light Infantry): The undermentioned officers, from the lst Surgeon-Lieutenant William L. Pritchard. Volunteer Battalion, The King’s (Shropshire Light Infantry), At the Royal United Service Institution in Whitehall on are appointed to the battalion, with rank and precedence as Nov. 18th Colonel H. E. Rawson, C.B., R.E., read a paper in the Volunteer Force (dated April 1st, 1908) :-Surgeon- entitled"A New Principle in Weather Forecasting and its Lieutenant-Colonel and Honorary Surgeon-Colonel Frederick Importance in Naval and Military Operations." RearKnollys Pigott and Surgeon-Lieutenant William Dyson (to be Admiral A. M. Field, F.R.S., hydrographer of the navy, supernumerary). Surgeon-Lieutenant-Colonel and Honorary presided. We hope to publish the main points of the Surgeon-Colonel Charles Henry Gwynn, from the 2nd discourse next week. Volunteer Battalion, The King’s (Shropshire Light Infantry), to be Surgeon-Lieutenant-Colonel with the honorary rank of Surgeon-Colonel, with precedence as in the Volunteer Force (dated April lst, 1908). 4th Battalion, Alexandra, Princess of Wales’s Own (Yorkshire Regiment): The undermentioned FROM

Looking Back.

officers, from the 1st Volunteer Battalion, Alexandra, Princess of Wales’s Own

(Yorkshire Regiment), are appointed rank and precedence as in the Volunteer Force (dated April 1st, 1908) :-Surgeon-Captain Harry Legh de Legh and Surgeon-Lieutenant Clarence Barns Whitehead. 2nd Battalion, The Monmouthshire Regiment:

to the

THE LANCET, SATURDAY, Nov. 20th, 1830.

battalion, with

ST.

The undermentioned officers, from the 3rd Volunteer Battalion, The South Wales Borderers, are appointed to the battalion, with rank and precedence as in the Volunteer

THOMAS’S CLINICAL

HOSPITAL. LECTURE

DELIVERED BY

DR. ELLIOTSON, 1908) :-Surgeon-Lieutenant-Colonel Rowlands Essex and James Nov. 8, 1830. Honorary Surgeon-Colonel Surgeon-Lieutenant Edward Meredith Griffith. VARIOUS CASES. Royal Army Medical Corps. Alexander Ogston is appointed to the Honorary Colonelcy HOSPITAL REGULATION RESPECTING POST-MORTHM of the Royal Army Medical Corps of the Highland Territorial EXAMINATIONS. Division (dated April lst, 1908). Richard Caton is appointed DURING the last week, Gentlemen, that is, since the comto the Honorary Colonelcy of the Royal Army Medical Corps of the West Lancashire Territorial Division (dated April lst, mencement of the present month, eight patients have been admitted, five of them men and three women. The cases 1908). For attachment to itnits. -Surgeon-Lieutenant- Colonel among the women were, one of phthisis, one of epilepsy, and Frederick Henry Appleby, from the 4th (Nottinghamshire) one of rheumatism. Amongst the men were, one case of Volunteer Battalion, The Sherwood Foresters (Nottingham- paralysis of the wrists from lead, one of acute inflammatory shire and Derbyshire Regiment), to be Lieutenant-Colonel dropsy, one of colic from lead, one of chronic diarrhoea, and (dated April lst, 1908). Surgeon-Major Walter Moffett one of inflammation of the glands at the angle of the jaw.

Force (dated April lst,

and

Hamilton, from the 3rd Volunteer Battalion, The Lancashire There has been one death. The patient was a woman, Fusiliers, to be Major, with precedence as in the Volunteer Force (dated April lst, 1908). Surgeon-Captain William and the case one of apoplexy. There was, I am sorry to say, Hearfield Galloway, from the 2nd (Leeds) Yorkshire (West no inspection of the body. It is much to be regretted that in Biding) Royal Engineers (Volunteers), to be Captain, with this hospital we cannot inspect patients who die withprecedence as in the Volunteer Force (dated April lst, 1908). out having first obtained permission from the friends. ,

1552

THE LATE SIR HENRY A. PITMAN: A CENTURY’S RETROSPECT.

a patient dies here in whose case we elder Southey, and Billing, and Aston Key, and Clift, and months used the utmost efforts to cure many more. But Sir Henry Pitman’s life was bound up with or relieve, and make an accurate diagnosis, and then that of the Royal College of Physicians. Of his long years no opportunity is given of proving the correctnessI of service to the College he loved to speak and to tell how of the diagnosis. I am quite satisfied that if patients or he had read through its centuries of Latin annals, how he their friends were informed that people would not be, spent long years upon their index, and how the Grant of Arms admitted into the hospital, except in cases of accident orwas once lost until the precious parchment was discovered by sudden illness, unless permission was previously given to one of the Fellows in a casual shop. Sir Henry Pitman knew inspect the body in the event of death, they would consent 13 successive Presidents of the College, from Halford who to it, and it would be done as a matter of course. Under came to the chair in 1820 down to the distinguished holder the present circumstances, in a large number of instances, of the office to-day. He was indeed examined by Sir Henry when permission is at first refused, it is given as soon as we Halford in Latin for the College Licence. Thus through the offer money. But this is a bad habit, and I seldom yield to life now closed we seem to be brought into touch with the it. Again, in a large number of cases, the persons who refuse courtly figure of that most aristocratic of physicians, the permission are not the immediate relatives, but mere trusted adviser of four successive sovereigns, and the undisacquaintances ; and though the former would consent, the puted head of his profession in London for 20 years from the latter urge them to oppose the measure, for the mere purpose death of Matthew Baillie in 1823. Sir Henry Pitman knew of looking friendly, or exerting influence and being busy. Halford’s successor, Dr. Paris, an accomplished chemist It frequently also happens that patients are never visited rather than a man of extensive practice, whose chief fame while in the hospital by either relatives or acquaintances, so rests on his literary work in pharmacology. It was under long as they are alive, but as soon as they die, ten or twenty Dr. Mayo that Sir Henry Pitman began his work as regispersons come forward to prevent the body from being opened. trar of the College; he found his President keen and I am quite sure that if it were made a rule to admit none intelligent, despite a certain hesitation in his manner. But the ideal President of all his experience was Sir Thomas (except indeed urgent cases) but with the understanding that they should be opened if they died, it would be cheerfully Watson. He was, Sir Henry Pitman would say, a most assented to. I am satisfied that the public feeling would amiable man, with a felicitous manner, the outcome of his change on the subject,-that the world might be brought to own happy nature. III never heard him speak an evil word consider that we had not paid proper respect to the of any one. Any letter he wrote was short and beautifully Sir Roundell Palmer, responding at a Harveian deceased unless we had ascertained by examination after expressed. death, the precise nature and cause of the complaint, and dinner, said that if he wanted happy expressions and good communicated the true state of the inside to the friends. language he would go to the Royal College of Physicians." This is always done in the case of the highest personage of In Sir Henry Pitman’s earlier days the President was still the kingdom ; and every soldier is opened, and whatever may chosen, under statute of Henry VIII., by the eight College be the part of the world in which he may have died, an "elects " from among their own number; it was not until account of the inspection is transmitted to the army medical 1860 that the choice was given to the whole body of Fellows. board at Woolwich. Unfortunately, many do not distinguish At the date of his birth the College was housed in Warwickbetween dissection and inspection-do not know that while lane ; its removal to Pall Mall East was celebrated with dissection means cutting up piece by piece, inspection is much ceremony in 1825. The changes of the century may merely making a cut, looking in, and sewing the cut up be illustrated from the College Pharmacopoeias. That issued in the year after Pitman’s birth introduced chemical nomenagain. Whenever I die I hope to be carefully inspected. clature and admitted arsenic and digitalis for the first time ; quinine, morphia, strychnia, and ergot had to wait until 1836. No attempt can, however, be here made to measure the advances witnessed by our venerable friend during his long life. The stethoscope, the microscope, the thermometer, the "Audi alteram partem." testing of urine and of blood,-all these were brought into use in medicine within that century of life and they have THE LATE SIR HENRY A. PITMAN: A opened up undreamt-of vistas in the science of our art. It may be that therapeusis has not kept pace with diagnosis, CENTURY’S RETROSPECT. yet the age has been so full of expanding medical knowledge To the Editor of THE LANCET. that to pass from 1808 to 1908 seems like going from darkSIR,-The student of historical medicine cannot but note ness into light. What may be looked for in the century to I am, Sir, yours faithfully, the passing away of Sir Henry Pitman. The historic imagina- come2 Fox. R. HINGSTON FOX. tion covets landmarks, and a life which covered a century London, W., Nov. 16th, 1908. and was passed in association with many of the leadersof British medicine may afford us such tokens. By these we THE ETYMOLOGY OF ASPHYXIA. may be helped to discern the march of our art, its periods and its masters, during the last few generations. To the Editor of THE LANCET. Sir Henry Pitman was born in 1808, the year before the birth of Darwin and of Oliver Wendell Holmes. (Many SIR,-The difficulty in explaining how the word asphyxia other men of note were born in 1809-Gladstone and Lincoln, has acquired its present meaning, "suffocation"" or deprivaTennyson and Fitzgerald and Poe, Mendelssohn and Chopin ; tion of air or oxygen, must have occurred to many of your it was a "year of momentous births," like 1769, when readers. the pulse) means Asphyxia (& priv. and is derived of the pulse. Napoleon, Wellington, and other famous men came into the pulselessness or stoppage " world.) When Sir Henry Pitman was born our country was in from o-956pw "to throb. But pulselessness is not a feature the throes of the Great War. He was already seven years old in what we call asphyxia, and under the heading Asphyxia in when that war was closed by the battle of Waterloo, and the Sir James Murray’s "New English Dictionary " the following leaders of medicine and other sciences in our own land and comment on this discrepancy appears:"It indicates a France could once more come together. English savants curious infelicity of etymology that the pulse in asphyxiated were again welcomed by Cuvier and Berthollet, by Dupuytren animals continues to beat long after all signs of respiratory movements have ceased." and Laennec. The possible solution of the difficulty is that the ancients, The period from the death of John Hunter in 1793 until 1820 may be called the Epoch of the Pupils of the Hunters- noticing that the arteries after death contained air and not Baillie and Abernethy and Astley Cooper and the rest-as it blood, believed that during life they were air-ducts ramifying was, perhaps, in the northern capital the epoch of the pupils from the trachea called the arteria aspera."Therefore, the of Cullen and of the Monroes. Young Pitman knew the word artery is probably derived from ’Ap (air) and generation that followed these-the era when in London (I guard) ; and as’’ the pulse-beat itself was attributed to the Lawrence and Brodie, Bright and the younger Babington rebound of air or vital spirit" in the arteries or air carriers were in their prime. He had heard Guthrie lecture ; he it follows that the word asphyxia acquired the double meanwould tell how W. F. Chambers kept the notes of his cases ing, stoppage of the pulse and deprivation of air. In the in Latin, of the mordant eloquence of J. A. Wilson, of the latter sense the term has survived. Thus an ancient error

Frequently

have

for

.

i

Correspondence.

,