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GUIDE TO OFFICIAL STATISTICS
232 in its value.
Soon it was reported that some of Mesmer’s patients during their cures carried out instructions while apparently in a state of unconsciousness or sonambulism. Miss Goldsmith shows how his notoriety roused the enmity of his colleagues, and how finally his undeserved failure to cure Maria Theresa von Paradis, the pianist, of her functional blindness was made an excuse for driving him from Vienna. He went to Paris where much the same history was repeated. The French Academy of Sciences was not impressed by his vague and unsubstantial memorandum upon animal magnetism. He acquired a considerable practice, but was despised by his medical colleagues. A commission appointed to inquire into his methods, though it included such men as Benjamin Franklin and Lavoisier, decided that all the effects of animal magnetism were due to the excited imagination of the patients. The names of a few practitioners who had adopted Mesmer’s technique were struck off the official register, but a number of lay people began to practice large " mesmerism," and some began to treat the patient in a trance as a kind of oracle who could diagnose the diseases of others. During the French Revolution Mesmer was forced to emigrate, and for some years wandered from Germany and Austria to Switzerland, and back to France. His last years were spent in Switzerland in a forgotten retirement. GUIDE TO
OFFICIAL STATISTICS
FOR the twelfth year the consultant committee, of which Sir Alfred Watson is chairman, has issued a guide to current official statistics of the United Kingdom, and as time goes on the survey increases in value and completeness. There is a system of cross references by following which it is possible to discover all official publications of the year which contain statistics bearing on a particular subject. Moreover, the inquirer will know in advance the nature of the statistics he will find : that is to say, their mode of analysis, and the time and place to which they relate. The modest price of this volume is one shilling, from H.M. Stationery Office or through any bookseller. OSLER AS PARASITOLOGIST
A JOINT COMMITTEE ON VOLUNTARY STERILISATION
ON
July 18th the Mental Hospitals Association meeting accepted by a large majority
at its annual
invitation of its executive committee to approve of the findings of the Departmental Committee on Sterilisation and of the appointment of representatives to a joint committee to urge action on the Government. Associated with this body in a Joint Committee on Voluntary Sterilisation are the Central Association for Mental Welfare, the National Council for Mental Hygiene, and the Eugenics Society. The County Councils Association is sending three of its members to attend the meetings of the joint committee, but without power to commit that body to any opinion or course of action. A sub-committee has been appointed to draft a Bill to legalise voluntary sterilisation to be submitted to the constituent organisations. The offices of the Committee are at 69, Ecclestonsquare, London, S.W.I. an
ALCOHOLISM IN RUMANIA THE increase in alcoholism in Rumania, especially in the rural districts, has recently received attention in two Paris theses. Dr. Moses Froim, whose thesis (1934, No. 358) is entitled the Medico-Social Problem of Alcoholism in Rumania, states that its most striking feature is the spread of the habit to women and children. The inertia of the public authorities has allowed a rapid increase in the number of drinking shops, three out of four of which have been opened since the war. The results have been medically a high morbidity and mortality, both among young children and adults of both sexes ; socially a large number of accidents, crimes, and minor offences, as
well as a deterioration of family life; and economically a considerable fall in agricultural and industrial production and consequent impoverishment. He estimates that the government which derives two thousand million lei from the taxes on alcohol has to spend five times as much to remedy its disastrous results. The proposals he makes include prohibition of spirits, substantial increase in the taxes on wine and beer, reduction in the number of public houses and their replacement by non-alcoholic restaurants, and
Sir William Osler’s early contributions to para- an attempt to improve the intellectual, musical, sitology are not as well known in this country as his and athletic education of the people. theDr. Isaac sanitary Reicher, whose thesis (No. 361) deals with researches in clinical and historical medicine, so that organisation in the rural districts of Rumania, an article on this subject by Dr. Thomas W. M. Cameron, of McGill University, in the Canadian also testifies to the increase in inalcoholism since the the frequency of war, with a consequent rise Medical Association Journal (1934, XXX., 553) will accidents, crimes, suicides, and mental diseases. attract many readers. Inspired by his headmaster, the Rev. W. A. Johnson, the young Osler first turned to OXYGEN FOR ULCERATIVE COLITIS biology and parasitology. In 1870 he became interested in trichinosis, which at that time was little A TYPICAL case of severe ulcerative colitis in known in America, and he appears to have been the which good results were obtained by means of oxygen first to point out the characteristic eosinophilia. injected directly into the bowel is reported by J. C. " Most cases even to-day," Dr. Cameron writes, The Etcheves (Semana méd., 1934, xli., 1709). are diagnosed as enteric fever until Osler’s tell-tale a young man, had been treated for two and a patient, true nature." Osler’s reveals their eosinophilia interests were not limited to human hehninthology, half months quite unsuccessfully by other methods and was becoming worse. Treatment had included rest in for he early appreciated the importance of comparabed, careful dieting, hot applications to the abdomen, tive study. " He was, in fact, one of the first sponsors of that youngest branch of medicine which we nowcolonic lavage with silver nitrate, flavine, and other call comparative medicine." It is worth mentioning solutions ; various drugs by mouth; subcutaneous It was that a worm occurring as a parasite in the gills of the injections of emetine, coagulin, calcium, &c. then to the effect decided of means try oxygen. By newt is named Sphyranura osleri, nov. gen. et sp. of a rectal tube connected with a cylinder of oxygen In 1877 a form of pneumonia broke out among the the gas was run directly into the bowel until the pups of the Montreal Hunt Club. Osler succeeded in patient began to feel distended. This procedure was isolating from the respiratory passages parasitic carried out twice a day for three weeks. The patient he which termed canis worms, Strongylus bronchialis, quickly began to improve and at the end of the subsequently renamed by Cobbold Filaria osleri. course of treatment was well on the way to recovery. The genus is now known as Oslerus osleri. In April, 1886, he sketched the amoeboid stage of the malarial A year later he was re-examined and found to be in parasite, but he at first failed to recognise the parasitegood health and able to eat anything. as the cause of the disease. The commencing chapters of Prof. Harvey Cushing’s comprehensive life of Osler have full references to Osler’s early work in parasitoTHE telephone number of the head offices of Messrs. logy, and to the influence upon the young biologist of Burroughs Wellcome and Co., Snow Hill Buildings, James Bovell and Johnson. London, E.C.1, has been changed to Central 4000. "
Soon it was reported that some of Mesmer’s patients during their cures carried out instructions while apparently in a state of unconsciousness or sonambulism. Miss Goldsmith shows how his notoriety roused the enmity of his colleagues, and how finally his undeserved failure to cure Maria Theresa von Paradis, the pianist, of her functional blindness was made an excuse for driving him from Vienna. He went to Paris where much the same history was repeated. The French Academy of Sciences was not impressed by his vague and unsubstantial memorandum upon animal magnetism. He acquired a considerable practice, but was despised by his medical colleagues. A commission appointed to inquire into his methods, though it included such men as Benjamin Franklin and Lavoisier, decided that all the effects of animal magnetism were due to the excited imagination of the patients. The names of a few practitioners who had adopted Mesmer’s technique were struck off the official register, but a number of lay people began to practice large " mesmerism," and some began to treat the patient in a trance as a kind of oracle who could diagnose the diseases of others. During the French Revolution Mesmer was forced to emigrate, and for some years wandered from Germany and Austria to Switzerland, and back to France. His last years were spent in Switzerland in a forgotten retirement. GUIDE TO
OFFICIAL STATISTICS
FOR the twelfth year the consultant committee, of which Sir Alfred Watson is chairman, has issued a guide to current official statistics of the United Kingdom, and as time goes on the survey increases in value and completeness. There is a system of cross references by following which it is possible to discover all official publications of the year which contain statistics bearing on a particular subject. Moreover, the inquirer will know in advance the nature of the statistics he will find : that is to say, their mode of analysis, and the time and place to which they relate. The modest price of this volume is one shilling, from H.M. Stationery Office or through any bookseller. OSLER AS PARASITOLOGIST
A JOINT COMMITTEE ON VOLUNTARY STERILISATION
ON
July 18th the Mental Hospitals Association meeting accepted by a large majority
at its annual
invitation of its executive committee to approve of the findings of the Departmental Committee on Sterilisation and of the appointment of representatives to a joint committee to urge action on the Government. Associated with this body in a Joint Committee on Voluntary Sterilisation are the Central Association for Mental Welfare, the National Council for Mental Hygiene, and the Eugenics Society. The County Councils Association is sending three of its members to attend the meetings of the joint committee, but without power to commit that body to any opinion or course of action. A sub-committee has been appointed to draft a Bill to legalise voluntary sterilisation to be submitted to the constituent organisations. The offices of the Committee are at 69, Ecclestonsquare, London, S.W.I. an
ALCOHOLISM IN RUMANIA THE increase in alcoholism in Rumania, especially in the rural districts, has recently received attention in two Paris theses. Dr. Moses Froim, whose thesis (1934, No. 358) is entitled the Medico-Social Problem of Alcoholism in Rumania, states that its most striking feature is the spread of the habit to women and children. The inertia of the public authorities has allowed a rapid increase in the number of drinking shops, three out of four of which have been opened since the war. The results have been medically a high morbidity and mortality, both among young children and adults of both sexes ; socially a large number of accidents, crimes, and minor offences, as
well as a deterioration of family life; and economically a considerable fall in agricultural and industrial production and consequent impoverishment. He estimates that the government which derives two thousand million lei from the taxes on alcohol has to spend five times as much to remedy its disastrous results. The proposals he makes include prohibition of spirits, substantial increase in the taxes on wine and beer, reduction in the number of public houses and their replacement by non-alcoholic restaurants, and
Sir William Osler’s early contributions to para- an attempt to improve the intellectual, musical, sitology are not as well known in this country as his and athletic education of the people. theDr. Isaac sanitary Reicher, whose thesis (No. 361) deals with researches in clinical and historical medicine, so that organisation in the rural districts of Rumania, an article on this subject by Dr. Thomas W. M. Cameron, of McGill University, in the Canadian also testifies to the increase in inalcoholism since the the frequency of war, with a consequent rise Medical Association Journal (1934, XXX., 553) will accidents, crimes, suicides, and mental diseases. attract many readers. Inspired by his headmaster, the Rev. W. A. Johnson, the young Osler first turned to OXYGEN FOR ULCERATIVE COLITIS biology and parasitology. In 1870 he became interested in trichinosis, which at that time was little A TYPICAL case of severe ulcerative colitis in known in America, and he appears to have been the which good results were obtained by means of oxygen first to point out the characteristic eosinophilia. injected directly into the bowel is reported by J. C. " Most cases even to-day," Dr. Cameron writes, The Etcheves (Semana méd., 1934, xli., 1709). are diagnosed as enteric fever until Osler’s tell-tale a young man, had been treated for two and a patient, true nature." Osler’s reveals their eosinophilia interests were not limited to human hehninthology, half months quite unsuccessfully by other methods and was becoming worse. Treatment had included rest in for he early appreciated the importance of comparabed, careful dieting, hot applications to the abdomen, tive study. " He was, in fact, one of the first sponsors of that youngest branch of medicine which we nowcolonic lavage with silver nitrate, flavine, and other call comparative medicine." It is worth mentioning solutions ; various drugs by mouth; subcutaneous It was that a worm occurring as a parasite in the gills of the injections of emetine, coagulin, calcium, &c. then to the effect decided of means try oxygen. By newt is named Sphyranura osleri, nov. gen. et sp. of a rectal tube connected with a cylinder of oxygen In 1877 a form of pneumonia broke out among the the gas was run directly into the bowel until the pups of the Montreal Hunt Club. Osler succeeded in patient began to feel distended. This procedure was isolating from the respiratory passages parasitic carried out twice a day for three weeks. The patient he which termed canis worms, Strongylus bronchialis, quickly began to improve and at the end of the subsequently renamed by Cobbold Filaria osleri. course of treatment was well on the way to recovery. The genus is now known as Oslerus osleri. In April, 1886, he sketched the amoeboid stage of the malarial A year later he was re-examined and found to be in parasite, but he at first failed to recognise the parasitegood health and able to eat anything. as the cause of the disease. The commencing chapters of Prof. Harvey Cushing’s comprehensive life of Osler have full references to Osler’s early work in parasitoTHE telephone number of the head offices of Messrs. logy, and to the influence upon the young biologist of Burroughs Wellcome and Co., Snow Hill Buildings, James Bovell and Johnson. London, E.C.1, has been changed to Central 4000. "