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INSANITY AND THE DEATH PENALTY.
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instantly acquired when seen. Mr. MacMunn may at first authority of Dr. Weatherly and Dr. Morton for saying that sight see some resemblance between his design and mine, for unless they had been previously satisfied of the untruth of all clamps may be more or less alike. But his requires a cork the theory of the prosecution and of the consequent want of to be placed over the protruding points after insertion-a motive for the crime they could not have expressed the clumsy, unscientific, and impossible method, as the past 18 opinion on the case which they did in the witnessI am, Sirs, yours faithfully, years have eloquently demonstrated. However, I shall shortly box. have some results of trials that are now being conducted in A. WENTWORTH MALIM, some of our largest London hospitals to submit to those who Solicitor for the Defence. Weymouth, July 2nd, 1902. may be sceptical, and in the meantime I shall be most happy to demonstrate the application of the new clamp by the side of Mr. MacMunn’s before any unquestionable surgical authority he may select. THE PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE AND THE I am, Sirs, yours faithfully, CORONATION HONOURS LIST. HAYDN BROWN, L.R.C.P. Edin. Surbiton, July 6th, 1902. is
confident
To the Editors of THE LANCET.
THE SEED AND THE SOIL.
SIRS,-While agreeing generally with your admirable leading article on the Coronation Honours in THE LANCET of July To the Editors of THE LANCET. 5th, p. 31, and while also fully endorsing your statement that SIRS,-The admirable and instructive lecture and leading "the general design of the Crown, and of the advisers of article which appeared in THE LANCET a few weeks ago1have the Crown, appears to have been toido ample justice to brought the seed and the soil"subject before your readers workers in the cause of humanity at large," may I venture in a way calculated to impress the memory with some sound to draw attention to the altogether remarkable omission and useful facts. No doubt in the growth, spread, and from the honours list of that great service of the State fatality of disease, especially of epidemic diseases, the soil which is responsible for the health of the people? or the bodily state has more to do with the untoward results This service through its untiring efforts is instrumental in than the quality of the seed sown. If the body or soil is saving annually thousands of lives. It is gradually prolongin a healthy, robust state the seed sown fails, but if the body the average duration of life on the planet, and, by ing is in a state of cachexy or low vitality the soil may bring the physical conditions under which the poor live, improving forth some a hundredfold, some sixty fold, some thirtyfold. it is on a work which has no parallel in history. carrying But the resisting or receptive power of the body or soil This service exercises a leavening and altogether non-polidepends for the most part on the climate or locality tical influence throughout all grades of society, and the force in which it is situated. If the climate or locality which it represents is, perhaps, if read aright, the most faris all that can be desired from a sanitary point of anti-revolutionary power of modern times. Neverreaching view the soil is healthy and resists contagion, but theless, this service has received no recognition whatever in if otherwise the body or soil lies open to receive the seed or the recent honours list. microbe of disease wherever it comes from. And of all the Perchance, had the victories of preventive medicine in preventives of disease there is none that can be compared Great Britain been less complete, and had bubonic plague to a good and perfect drainage of the environments of the invaded our shores, and small-pox spread broadcast over the soil or body. conditions would have approximated more to those land, the main Before the drainage of Lincoln was effected its of the field of battle, and decorations might have been sanitary state was as bad as it could be. The sewage ran bestowed upon the service on almost military lines. It may into cesspools and there was allowed to ferment and to putrefy be that the martial spirit of the moment has led and to fill the air with noxious effluvia. Dysentery, diarrhoea, possibly the advisers of the Crown to attach less importance to the and typhoid fever prevailed, and consumption was so common of human life and to the improvement of its condithat Dr. Thompson of the Brompton Hospital for Consump- i-aving tions. But whatever the explanation the omission is none the tion, in his Clinical Lectures on Pulm nary Consumption, le-.s remarkable. The disease was most frequent among remarked on it. It would be obviously absurd to suppose that the monarch women who remained at home in their houses, but their who happily still reigns over us, and with whose name the husbands who spent their days away from home in the query, " If preventable, why not prevented ?" will fields generally escaped contagion. When the main drainage pregnant be associated, would have allowed this omission had always was accomplished a rapid improvement in the health of the the claims of this service been adequately put before him. city took place and now in this coronation yeartyphoid The deep interest taken by His Majesty in the housing of his fever and consumption seem to be dying out, and although poorer subjects and in the prevention of tuberculosis we have recently had a slight outbreak of scarlet fever, still and cancer is sufficient in itself to negative any such the death-rate is only about 14 in 1000, and I hope that view. Moreover, I read the signs erroneously if I do not forth the will fall the * when the sower goes to sow seeds by detect in the list of honours the keenest sympathy of King wayside and the fowls of the air will come and devour: Edward VII. for the worker whatever such work may be. them up.-I am, Sirs, yours faithfully, In this sense the honours list is, in my opinion, altoWILLIAM O’NEILL, M.D. Aberd., M.R. C. P. Lond. Nor can I believe that the able and gether unique. Lincoln, July 5th, 1902. vigorous Cabinet Minister who is responsible for the sanitary service of this country has failed to lay before the claim of those who, in the INSANITY AND THE DEATH PENALTY. the proper ofauthorities and plague small-pox, and in the routine prevention To the Editors of THE LANCET. work of public health have so well supported his efforts. SIRS,—My attention has just been drawn to an article in Mr. Walter Long must. above all others, be aware of the THE LANCET of June 21st, p. 1782, with reference to the trial signal services rendered to public health by the labours for murder of the unhappy man Simmons at the recent Dorsett of his own medical department, and by those numerous assizes, and I shall be glad if you will allow me to say a medical officers of health who in our ports and towns have word in reply upon the facts of the case which may be of f borne the brunt of the attack. But there is something strangely anomalous in the fact interest to your readers from a scientific point of view, as s that honours should have been showered, and justly so, well as a matter of fairness to the prisoner. The writer has s those who have defended the honour of the Empire picked out the salient facts without reference to any of the.e upon in the battle-field while those who in the paths of peace .e minor events which qualified them, and upon these facts he have kept disease from our shores, and have made the ,s has assumed that the theory of the prosecution that this was name of England synonymous with sanitation should upon a deliberate crime "committed by an angry man upon a a historic occasion such as this have been passed over in woman who had refused (apparently) to respond to his " silence. If, Sirs, it were possible that on each New Year’s but this is what the e exactly passion" was proved ; Eve, as the ebbing year flows into the ocean of time, Q prosecution utterly failed to prove, and it was obvious to there should be a march past of all those men, women, the the ,e who heard evidence that motive suggested everyone and children whose lives preventive medicine had saved for ever gone e for the crime was absolutely broken down and during that year, a spectacle would be witnessed which long before the close of the prosecution, and I have the would cast martial displays into relative insignificance, and 1 THE which would awaken in the minds of the onlookers some LANCET, May 10th (p. 1297) and June 28th (p. 1843), 1902. ’
instantly acquired when seen. Mr. MacMunn may at first authority of Dr. Weatherly and Dr. Morton for saying that sight see some resemblance between his design and mine, for unless they had been previously satisfied of the untruth of all clamps may be more or less alike. But his requires a cork the theory of the prosecution and of the consequent want of to be placed over the protruding points after insertion-a motive for the crime they could not have expressed the clumsy, unscientific, and impossible method, as the past 18 opinion on the case which they did in the witnessI am, Sirs, yours faithfully, years have eloquently demonstrated. However, I shall shortly box. have some results of trials that are now being conducted in A. WENTWORTH MALIM, some of our largest London hospitals to submit to those who Solicitor for the Defence. Weymouth, July 2nd, 1902. may be sceptical, and in the meantime I shall be most happy to demonstrate the application of the new clamp by the side of Mr. MacMunn’s before any unquestionable surgical authority he may select. THE PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE AND THE I am, Sirs, yours faithfully, CORONATION HONOURS LIST. HAYDN BROWN, L.R.C.P. Edin. Surbiton, July 6th, 1902. is
confident
To the Editors of THE LANCET.
THE SEED AND THE SOIL.
SIRS,-While agreeing generally with your admirable leading article on the Coronation Honours in THE LANCET of July To the Editors of THE LANCET. 5th, p. 31, and while also fully endorsing your statement that SIRS,-The admirable and instructive lecture and leading "the general design of the Crown, and of the advisers of article which appeared in THE LANCET a few weeks ago1have the Crown, appears to have been toido ample justice to brought the seed and the soil"subject before your readers workers in the cause of humanity at large," may I venture in a way calculated to impress the memory with some sound to draw attention to the altogether remarkable omission and useful facts. No doubt in the growth, spread, and from the honours list of that great service of the State fatality of disease, especially of epidemic diseases, the soil which is responsible for the health of the people? or the bodily state has more to do with the untoward results This service through its untiring efforts is instrumental in than the quality of the seed sown. If the body or soil is saving annually thousands of lives. It is gradually prolongin a healthy, robust state the seed sown fails, but if the body the average duration of life on the planet, and, by ing is in a state of cachexy or low vitality the soil may bring the physical conditions under which the poor live, improving forth some a hundredfold, some sixty fold, some thirtyfold. it is on a work which has no parallel in history. carrying But the resisting or receptive power of the body or soil This service exercises a leavening and altogether non-polidepends for the most part on the climate or locality tical influence throughout all grades of society, and the force in which it is situated. If the climate or locality which it represents is, perhaps, if read aright, the most faris all that can be desired from a sanitary point of anti-revolutionary power of modern times. Neverreaching view the soil is healthy and resists contagion, but theless, this service has received no recognition whatever in if otherwise the body or soil lies open to receive the seed or the recent honours list. microbe of disease wherever it comes from. And of all the Perchance, had the victories of preventive medicine in preventives of disease there is none that can be compared Great Britain been less complete, and had bubonic plague to a good and perfect drainage of the environments of the invaded our shores, and small-pox spread broadcast over the soil or body. conditions would have approximated more to those land, the main Before the drainage of Lincoln was effected its of the field of battle, and decorations might have been sanitary state was as bad as it could be. The sewage ran bestowed upon the service on almost military lines. It may into cesspools and there was allowed to ferment and to putrefy be that the martial spirit of the moment has led and to fill the air with noxious effluvia. Dysentery, diarrhoea, possibly the advisers of the Crown to attach less importance to the and typhoid fever prevailed, and consumption was so common of human life and to the improvement of its condithat Dr. Thompson of the Brompton Hospital for Consump- i-aving tions. But whatever the explanation the omission is none the tion, in his Clinical Lectures on Pulm nary Consumption, le-.s remarkable. The disease was most frequent among remarked on it. It would be obviously absurd to suppose that the monarch women who remained at home in their houses, but their who happily still reigns over us, and with whose name the husbands who spent their days away from home in the query, " If preventable, why not prevented ?" will fields generally escaped contagion. When the main drainage pregnant be associated, would have allowed this omission had always was accomplished a rapid improvement in the health of the the claims of this service been adequately put before him. city took place and now in this coronation yeartyphoid The deep interest taken by His Majesty in the housing of his fever and consumption seem to be dying out, and although poorer subjects and in the prevention of tuberculosis we have recently had a slight outbreak of scarlet fever, still and cancer is sufficient in itself to negative any such the death-rate is only about 14 in 1000, and I hope that view. Moreover, I read the signs erroneously if I do not forth the will fall the * when the sower goes to sow seeds by detect in the list of honours the keenest sympathy of King wayside and the fowls of the air will come and devour: Edward VII. for the worker whatever such work may be. them up.-I am, Sirs, yours faithfully, In this sense the honours list is, in my opinion, altoWILLIAM O’NEILL, M.D. Aberd., M.R. C. P. Lond. Nor can I believe that the able and gether unique. Lincoln, July 5th, 1902. vigorous Cabinet Minister who is responsible for the sanitary service of this country has failed to lay before the claim of those who, in the INSANITY AND THE DEATH PENALTY. the proper ofauthorities and plague small-pox, and in the routine prevention To the Editors of THE LANCET. work of public health have so well supported his efforts. SIRS,—My attention has just been drawn to an article in Mr. Walter Long must. above all others, be aware of the THE LANCET of June 21st, p. 1782, with reference to the trial signal services rendered to public health by the labours for murder of the unhappy man Simmons at the recent Dorsett of his own medical department, and by those numerous assizes, and I shall be glad if you will allow me to say a medical officers of health who in our ports and towns have word in reply upon the facts of the case which may be of f borne the brunt of the attack. But there is something strangely anomalous in the fact interest to your readers from a scientific point of view, as s that honours should have been showered, and justly so, well as a matter of fairness to the prisoner. The writer has s those who have defended the honour of the Empire picked out the salient facts without reference to any of the.e upon in the battle-field while those who in the paths of peace .e minor events which qualified them, and upon these facts he have kept disease from our shores, and have made the ,s has assumed that the theory of the prosecution that this was name of England synonymous with sanitation should upon a deliberate crime "committed by an angry man upon a a historic occasion such as this have been passed over in woman who had refused (apparently) to respond to his " silence. If, Sirs, it were possible that on each New Year’s but this is what the e exactly passion" was proved ; Eve, as the ebbing year flows into the ocean of time, Q prosecution utterly failed to prove, and it was obvious to there should be a march past of all those men, women, the the ,e who heard evidence that motive suggested everyone and children whose lives preventive medicine had saved for ever gone e for the crime was absolutely broken down and during that year, a spectacle would be witnessed which long before the close of the prosecution, and I have the would cast martial displays into relative insignificance, and 1 THE which would awaken in the minds of the onlookers some LANCET, May 10th (p. 1297) and June 28th (p. 1843), 1902. ’