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MANCHESTER.
122 If a public medical service was organised by the Medical is actually to his benefit not to be sent for by the patient. In such circumstances what can be expected ?7 Is Society of Macclesfield it is inconceivable and, indeed, would it surprising to hear the people at Macclesfield say, be very wrong that the members enrolled should be charged " Oh, he is only a club doctor," and their one ambition, less than ld. per week. This is the lowest sum adwhen they can afford it, is to consult someone who is not missible. If a person cannot pay ld. per week for medical
a club doctor." What is done in effect is to make use of the advice and medicine when he is ill, then he must be referred club or burial societies’ medical officers for trivial ailments. to a pure charity or to the Poor-law authorities. Yet at But when there is a dangerous illness the members of the Macclesfield would it be possible to induce any considerable club have so little respect for, or confidence in, their medical number of those who are now payivg only 10d. a year to pay officer that they consult private practitioners when they can 4s. 4d. a year ? Certainly a great many of these people are afford to pay the usual medical fees Then, again, the fact dissatisfied with their tenpenny club medical officer and if it that so many members of these societies or clubs do pay was found that local practitioners of good repute and who these fees proves conclusively that there is an abuse, that a were not club medical officers nevertheless consented to give wage limit is not imposed, and that members are admitted to their help to the public medical service it might make a conparticipate in the medical aid when they are in a position to siderable difference. A model institution might thus grow up but the old societies with all their abuses, though a little pay proper medical fees. The medical practitioners are not alone in complaining of weakened, would remain all the same. The local branch of this abuse. The dispensing chemists declare that they have the British Medical Association proposes another alternative lost many customers who used to pay, and pay well, for the or temporary set of measures. These consist of the sugprescriptions which they brought in. Now they have joined a gestion that all the practitioners of the district should agree society or club and get their medicine for the few pence that as to the terms which they will accept from the existing they pay per annum. Many of these people are well dressed clubs and should also establish the conditions of admisand far from being only poor labourers are sometimes sion to attendance under contracts, including provisions tradesmen and others engaged in remunerative business. with respect to the economic position, age, and health of Of course, this question of abuse is not peculiar to the candidate." In briefer parlance, this means the imMacclesfield. Throughout the country a clearly defined position of a wage-limit, the one thing of all others that wage limit is even more necessary than an improved rate no club or friendly society will accept. Under existing of payment. It does not matter how small the remuneration conditions it might be easier to establish a public medical so long as the sufferer is really poor and cannot pay more. service than to reform the existing institutions. But in But it must be understood that the attendance on such cases either case the practical point is how to prevent the is a work of charity. At Macclesfield during the 12 months importation of practitioners who are ready to undersell their ending Sept. 30th, 1905, a dispensing chemist, who had con- colleagues and to break up all attempts at reform. tracted to make up the medicaments required by one of The local medical society, though it has enrolled all the burial societies, found that he had received during the the practitioners of the town, is, as has been pointed out, year 8200 prescriptions. For these he was paid a fixed sum but a small body, for there are only 34,635 inhabitants of £100. He thereupon demanded an increase of £30 and at Macclesfield. Of these it is said that from 22,000 was ultimately granted an addition of £20 per annum. It is to 25,000 are members of the various clubs, so that obvious that the members of one single society did not need there does not remain much for the private practitioner all this medicine on charitable terms. Yet a person who to do. Fortunately a considerable number of well-to-do only pays 10d. per annum for medical advice cannot consider Manchester families come to live on the healthy and bracing him self otherwise than as in the receipt of charity. hills which surround Macclesfield. The decline of the silk There are some other clubs in Macclesfield besides the trade has caused a great fall in house rent and this serves to burial societies and, though the case against them is attract a few people. These newcomers are the best paying not so scandalous, they pay much less than the same patients. Nevertheless, what with the prevailing poverty organisations in other towns. Thus, I was assured that the due to the decline of the silk trade and the enormous Oddfellows only pay 2s. 6d. per annum to their medical officer proportion of the inhabitants who belong to medical aid and there is a society known as the North Road Friendly organisations there remains very little private practice Society that only pays 3s. 6d. though its members are available. In view of these circumstances the Macclesfield scattered over an area of five or six miles. In no case does Medical Society needs outside support. Indeed, no local there seem to be any attempt to impose a wage limit. Thus body alone can fight such a battle. Such outside help we find at Macclesfield the grievances that exist elsewhere will be more efficacious if the Macclesfield Medical plus the extra evil that the payments made to the club Society is affiliated to the other medical unions engaged medical officers are so much below the sums usually given in the same struggle. In this part of England these In such distressful bodies have been grouped together by the Manchester as to constitute a genuine scandal. circumstances it is only natural to inquire if any remedy Medical Guild. This organisation has a practical experihas been proposed. The local practitioners, as already ence, now extending over a good many years, of, actual related, have taken the matter in hand but they have contests, of genuine battles, with the clubs. The experience not succeeded in preventing the importation of outsiders. thus acquired would be very valuable to the Macclesfield The Stockport, Macclesfield, and East Cheshire division practitioners. of the Lancashire and Cheshire branch of the British But the Macclesfield practitioners also need the support Medical Association has issued a list of recommendations. of the profession at large. Therefore their case should They are lengthy, like the title of the organisation by be submitted to the judgment of larger bodies than which they have been formulated, but they do not contain their own local organisation. Some steps in this direction a single word to indicate what is to be done to prevent On Dec. 21st last the Cheshire and have been taken. the competition of practitioners imported from Ireland East Lancashire branch of the British Medical Association and elsewhere. It is comparatively easy to say that con- met at Stockport and passed a resolution requesting the uracb ue unum UJ. LUPUiCal association to send a representative to Macclesfield to themselves and should constitute a public service open to all inquire into the club practice in that town. The meeting medical practitioners on identical terms, while at the same at Stockport also recommended the Macclesfield Medical time a strict wage limit must be imposed on all persons who Society to affiliate with the Manchester Guild. Thus subscribe. These excellent schemes are as water on a duck’s it is very probable that the Macclesfield practitioners will back so far as the existing clubs are concerned. At Coventry come into line with a fighting element of the profession a public medical service was established on these lines long which has already done much to raise the dignity, and to im’ before the British Medical Association so modified its con- prove the material conditions of life among, a very large class stitution as to be able to take such matters in hand. of medical men in different parts of the country. The endeavour made by the practitioners of Coventry is worthy of the utmost praise and the closest study, but the great club against which they fought exists still. MANCHESTER. At Southampton and elsewhere similar medical public services have been organised and great good has resulted (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) therefrom ; but nevertheless clubs have continued to exist in School for Crippled Children. those towns and are likely to continue so long as the imA GOOD deal is heard of the high education rate and no portation of practitioners remains a comparatively easy matter. This really is the very foundation of the question doubt it is a serious addition to the general rate burden is so far as the practical means of action are concerned. , under which Manchester, like too many other places, 11
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123 a good word may be said for the residential nearer to the Gateforth estate than any formerly existing, crippled children at Swinton. 30 of them are and there are also engineering difficulties in the way. Very comfortably housed, well fed, well tended, and taught strong pressure has for long been steadily brought to bear on "within the measure of their capacity." The house stands the Leeds corporation by the West Riding rivers board to in its own grounds of eight acres and was taken by the make satisfactory arrangements. Mr. J. R. Ford, the education committee on lease, but the experiment has been chairman of the sanitary committee, appeared as one of a so successful that the committee is going to purchase the deputation to the rivers board and pointed out that the estate. Arrangements are now being made for an extension Leeds corporation had had difficulties to contend with which will give accommodation for 35 more children. greater than those experienced by any other corporation in the kingdom. He indicated that the Gateforth scheme Hane7tester’s Feeble-minded. have to be dropped but that negotiations were would The Royal Commission has appointed Dr. H. Ashby and on for the acquisition of the necessary land elsegoing Dr. Melland to make inquiries as to the number of feeble- where. These negotiations have resulted in an entirely The new scheme minded persons in Manchester and the district. being worked out. This was discussed at circular letter from the Local Government Board making at a recent meeting of the city council and adopted. length thisannouncement conveys the hope that the guardians The Hon. Mrs. Meynell Ingram, who was one of the will give the above-named gentlemen every assistance in 20 opponents to the Gateforth scheme and who was also their duties, which help they have undertaken to give. to sell any of her land at Temple Newsam for unwilling Jan. 9th. sewage purposes, left the estate of Temple Newsam on her death to the Hon. E. F. Lindley Wood who was approached by the corporation, and it was finally agreed LIVERPOOL. that in respect of the sum of £ 231,000 the corporation (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) should become the possessors of 1000 acres of land. The price was to include the right of user of mineral railways giving access to the North-Eastern and Great University of Liverpool. Northern and the use of a basin of the Aire and Calder THE reports from the 14 colleges which participated during Canal, as well as the acquisition of the minerals under the year ending March 31st, 1905, in the annual grant, the works at Knowesthorpe and under 150 amounting to £ 54,000, made by Parliament for " University acresexisting of the estate. It was estimated that the capital Colleges"in Great Britain and from the three colleges in cost of the scheme, including the payment to the Wales, which receive a grant of £ 4000 each, have just been owner of the estate, would amount to £ 1, 900, 000 issued by the Board of Education as a blue-book. With and that the charges would reach .685,410, inregard to the University of Liverpool the number of arts, cluding sinkingworking fund and interest. It was felt that the science, law, and engineering students registered during the cost of the land was extremely high, and, indeed, some session 1903-04 was 542, 358 being male and 184 being members of the corporation expressed themselves very female. The medical school students numbered in the on the matter, but, on the other hand, as the strongly winter session 158 and in the summer session 125. The corporation desired to avoid the resource to arbitration innumber of students who passed the university medical degree volved by compulsory purchase by Act of Parliament, and examinatiorswas 27. as it did not regard any modification of the Gateforth The Medical Supervision of Mid,7vives. scheme as likely to prove satisfactory, the recommendation Considerable discussion took place at the city council upon of the committee was approved without a dissentient. The a recommendation of the health committee that Dr. A. A. purchase is subject to the corporation obtaining powers in Mussen, assistant medical officer o f health, should be appointed the session of Parliament of 1907 to use the grounds for the to undertake the general supervision of midwives in the city purpose of sewage disposal. The scheme will, of course, under the Midwives Act, 1902, for 12 months, at a salary of involve a great enlargement of the present sewage works at £ 100 a year in addition to his present salary as assistant Knowesthorpe. Jan. 9th. medical officer of health. Dr. R. Caton and others emphasised the great importance of an appointment such as the one proposed. Opposition was offered to the proposal on various SCOTLAND. grounds and an amendment was discussed that Dr. Mussen should be appointed to the position at a salary of f.50 a year. OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) (FROM The committee’s recommendation confirmed.
groaning,
but
school for
_________________
was,
however,
The New Snperintenclent of the Fazakerley Hospital. The port sanitary and hospitals committee’s recommendation to appoint Dr. Claude Rundle as medical superintendent at the city hospital, Fazakerley, at a salary of C400 per annum, increasing by E50 yearly to f.600, with house, coal, and lighting, was confirmed at the last meeting of the city council. Jan. 9th. __________________
LEEDS. (FROM
OUR OWN
CORRESPONDENT.)
The Leeds Sewage Schemes. WHEX in 1900 the Leeds corporation purchased the ’Gateforth estate near Selby for £ 88,000 it was confidently anticipated that the question of the disposal of the sewage of the city would be satisfactorily solved by the establishment of a sewage farm. It will be remembered that this scheme involved the laying of a conduit some 14 miles long and that the opposition to this was so strong that the corporation Bill was thrown out by a committee of the House of Lords. As was mentioned in this column on May 13th, 1905, a modification of this scheme had been drawn up, under which it was intended partially to deal with the sewage at Knowesthorpe, within the city boundary and at the present site of the sewage beds, and then to carry the modified effluent in steel pipes to Gateforth. This scheme would be opposed by the authorities at Selby who have recently sunk wells
Parliamentary Elections for Scottish Universities. THE four Scottish Universities return among them two Members to the Imperial Parliament, one being elected by Edinburgh and St. Andrews and another by Glasgow and Aberdeen. Both groups are to be fought this year and in each case a medical candidate is opposed by a layman, while party politics must complicate the medical voting. At Edinburgh and St. Andrews the sitting Member, Sir John Batty Tuke, whose medical work is known to all, is opposed by Mr. St. Loe Strachey, the editor of the Spectator, who stands as a Free Trader. In the Glasgow and Aberdeen constituency there has been no contest since 1880 but at the forthcoming election everything points to a keen contest. One candidate is Sir Henry Craik whose wide knowledge of educational matters will no doubt carry great weight, and who stands as a Tariff Reformer. The other candidate is Professor W. R. Smith who has been brought forward by a section of the electors who feel that it is desirable to have as their representative a member of the medical profession and a graduate of one or other of the universities which he represents, both of which conditions Professor Smith fulfils. Excavations at
Glasgow Royal Infirmary.
the opposition that is being met with from various quarters the directors of the Royal Infirmary are proceeding steadily with the preparations for carrying out the reconstruction scheme. The new plans necessitate the encroachment on ground formerly used as a cemetery. For many years this ground has formed a bright-green patch adjoining the infirmary and there the convalescent patients had their daily airing. It was conveyed by the corporation
Notwithstanding
a club doctor." What is done in effect is to make use of the advice and medicine when he is ill, then he must be referred club or burial societies’ medical officers for trivial ailments. to a pure charity or to the Poor-law authorities. Yet at But when there is a dangerous illness the members of the Macclesfield would it be possible to induce any considerable club have so little respect for, or confidence in, their medical number of those who are now payivg only 10d. a year to pay officer that they consult private practitioners when they can 4s. 4d. a year ? Certainly a great many of these people are afford to pay the usual medical fees Then, again, the fact dissatisfied with their tenpenny club medical officer and if it that so many members of these societies or clubs do pay was found that local practitioners of good repute and who these fees proves conclusively that there is an abuse, that a were not club medical officers nevertheless consented to give wage limit is not imposed, and that members are admitted to their help to the public medical service it might make a conparticipate in the medical aid when they are in a position to siderable difference. A model institution might thus grow up but the old societies with all their abuses, though a little pay proper medical fees. The medical practitioners are not alone in complaining of weakened, would remain all the same. The local branch of this abuse. The dispensing chemists declare that they have the British Medical Association proposes another alternative lost many customers who used to pay, and pay well, for the or temporary set of measures. These consist of the sugprescriptions which they brought in. Now they have joined a gestion that all the practitioners of the district should agree society or club and get their medicine for the few pence that as to the terms which they will accept from the existing they pay per annum. Many of these people are well dressed clubs and should also establish the conditions of admisand far from being only poor labourers are sometimes sion to attendance under contracts, including provisions tradesmen and others engaged in remunerative business. with respect to the economic position, age, and health of Of course, this question of abuse is not peculiar to the candidate." In briefer parlance, this means the imMacclesfield. Throughout the country a clearly defined position of a wage-limit, the one thing of all others that wage limit is even more necessary than an improved rate no club or friendly society will accept. Under existing of payment. It does not matter how small the remuneration conditions it might be easier to establish a public medical so long as the sufferer is really poor and cannot pay more. service than to reform the existing institutions. But in But it must be understood that the attendance on such cases either case the practical point is how to prevent the is a work of charity. At Macclesfield during the 12 months importation of practitioners who are ready to undersell their ending Sept. 30th, 1905, a dispensing chemist, who had con- colleagues and to break up all attempts at reform. tracted to make up the medicaments required by one of The local medical society, though it has enrolled all the burial societies, found that he had received during the the practitioners of the town, is, as has been pointed out, year 8200 prescriptions. For these he was paid a fixed sum but a small body, for there are only 34,635 inhabitants of £100. He thereupon demanded an increase of £30 and at Macclesfield. Of these it is said that from 22,000 was ultimately granted an addition of £20 per annum. It is to 25,000 are members of the various clubs, so that obvious that the members of one single society did not need there does not remain much for the private practitioner all this medicine on charitable terms. Yet a person who to do. Fortunately a considerable number of well-to-do only pays 10d. per annum for medical advice cannot consider Manchester families come to live on the healthy and bracing him self otherwise than as in the receipt of charity. hills which surround Macclesfield. The decline of the silk There are some other clubs in Macclesfield besides the trade has caused a great fall in house rent and this serves to burial societies and, though the case against them is attract a few people. These newcomers are the best paying not so scandalous, they pay much less than the same patients. Nevertheless, what with the prevailing poverty organisations in other towns. Thus, I was assured that the due to the decline of the silk trade and the enormous Oddfellows only pay 2s. 6d. per annum to their medical officer proportion of the inhabitants who belong to medical aid and there is a society known as the North Road Friendly organisations there remains very little private practice Society that only pays 3s. 6d. though its members are available. In view of these circumstances the Macclesfield scattered over an area of five or six miles. In no case does Medical Society needs outside support. Indeed, no local there seem to be any attempt to impose a wage limit. Thus body alone can fight such a battle. Such outside help we find at Macclesfield the grievances that exist elsewhere will be more efficacious if the Macclesfield Medical plus the extra evil that the payments made to the club Society is affiliated to the other medical unions engaged medical officers are so much below the sums usually given in the same struggle. In this part of England these In such distressful bodies have been grouped together by the Manchester as to constitute a genuine scandal. circumstances it is only natural to inquire if any remedy Medical Guild. This organisation has a practical experihas been proposed. The local practitioners, as already ence, now extending over a good many years, of, actual related, have taken the matter in hand but they have contests, of genuine battles, with the clubs. The experience not succeeded in preventing the importation of outsiders. thus acquired would be very valuable to the Macclesfield The Stockport, Macclesfield, and East Cheshire division practitioners. of the Lancashire and Cheshire branch of the British But the Macclesfield practitioners also need the support Medical Association has issued a list of recommendations. of the profession at large. Therefore their case should They are lengthy, like the title of the organisation by be submitted to the judgment of larger bodies than which they have been formulated, but they do not contain their own local organisation. Some steps in this direction a single word to indicate what is to be done to prevent On Dec. 21st last the Cheshire and have been taken. the competition of practitioners imported from Ireland East Lancashire branch of the British Medical Association and elsewhere. It is comparatively easy to say that con- met at Stockport and passed a resolution requesting the uracb ue unum UJ. LUPUiCal association to send a representative to Macclesfield to themselves and should constitute a public service open to all inquire into the club practice in that town. The meeting medical practitioners on identical terms, while at the same at Stockport also recommended the Macclesfield Medical time a strict wage limit must be imposed on all persons who Society to affiliate with the Manchester Guild. Thus subscribe. These excellent schemes are as water on a duck’s it is very probable that the Macclesfield practitioners will back so far as the existing clubs are concerned. At Coventry come into line with a fighting element of the profession a public medical service was established on these lines long which has already done much to raise the dignity, and to im’ before the British Medical Association so modified its con- prove the material conditions of life among, a very large class stitution as to be able to take such matters in hand. of medical men in different parts of the country. The endeavour made by the practitioners of Coventry is worthy of the utmost praise and the closest study, but the great club against which they fought exists still. MANCHESTER. At Southampton and elsewhere similar medical public services have been organised and great good has resulted (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) therefrom ; but nevertheless clubs have continued to exist in School for Crippled Children. those towns and are likely to continue so long as the imA GOOD deal is heard of the high education rate and no portation of practitioners remains a comparatively easy matter. This really is the very foundation of the question doubt it is a serious addition to the general rate burden is so far as the practical means of action are concerned. , under which Manchester, like too many other places, 11
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-
-
..
-
.-
,
123 a good word may be said for the residential nearer to the Gateforth estate than any formerly existing, crippled children at Swinton. 30 of them are and there are also engineering difficulties in the way. Very comfortably housed, well fed, well tended, and taught strong pressure has for long been steadily brought to bear on "within the measure of their capacity." The house stands the Leeds corporation by the West Riding rivers board to in its own grounds of eight acres and was taken by the make satisfactory arrangements. Mr. J. R. Ford, the education committee on lease, but the experiment has been chairman of the sanitary committee, appeared as one of a so successful that the committee is going to purchase the deputation to the rivers board and pointed out that the estate. Arrangements are now being made for an extension Leeds corporation had had difficulties to contend with which will give accommodation for 35 more children. greater than those experienced by any other corporation in the kingdom. He indicated that the Gateforth scheme Hane7tester’s Feeble-minded. have to be dropped but that negotiations were would The Royal Commission has appointed Dr. H. Ashby and on for the acquisition of the necessary land elsegoing Dr. Melland to make inquiries as to the number of feeble- where. These negotiations have resulted in an entirely The new scheme minded persons in Manchester and the district. being worked out. This was discussed at circular letter from the Local Government Board making at a recent meeting of the city council and adopted. length thisannouncement conveys the hope that the guardians The Hon. Mrs. Meynell Ingram, who was one of the will give the above-named gentlemen every assistance in 20 opponents to the Gateforth scheme and who was also their duties, which help they have undertaken to give. to sell any of her land at Temple Newsam for unwilling Jan. 9th. sewage purposes, left the estate of Temple Newsam on her death to the Hon. E. F. Lindley Wood who was approached by the corporation, and it was finally agreed LIVERPOOL. that in respect of the sum of £ 231,000 the corporation (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) should become the possessors of 1000 acres of land. The price was to include the right of user of mineral railways giving access to the North-Eastern and Great University of Liverpool. Northern and the use of a basin of the Aire and Calder THE reports from the 14 colleges which participated during Canal, as well as the acquisition of the minerals under the year ending March 31st, 1905, in the annual grant, the works at Knowesthorpe and under 150 amounting to £ 54,000, made by Parliament for " University acresexisting of the estate. It was estimated that the capital Colleges"in Great Britain and from the three colleges in cost of the scheme, including the payment to the Wales, which receive a grant of £ 4000 each, have just been owner of the estate, would amount to £ 1, 900, 000 issued by the Board of Education as a blue-book. With and that the charges would reach .685,410, inregard to the University of Liverpool the number of arts, cluding sinkingworking fund and interest. It was felt that the science, law, and engineering students registered during the cost of the land was extremely high, and, indeed, some session 1903-04 was 542, 358 being male and 184 being members of the corporation expressed themselves very female. The medical school students numbered in the on the matter, but, on the other hand, as the strongly winter session 158 and in the summer session 125. The corporation desired to avoid the resource to arbitration innumber of students who passed the university medical degree volved by compulsory purchase by Act of Parliament, and examinatiorswas 27. as it did not regard any modification of the Gateforth The Medical Supervision of Mid,7vives. scheme as likely to prove satisfactory, the recommendation Considerable discussion took place at the city council upon of the committee was approved without a dissentient. The a recommendation of the health committee that Dr. A. A. purchase is subject to the corporation obtaining powers in Mussen, assistant medical officer o f health, should be appointed the session of Parliament of 1907 to use the grounds for the to undertake the general supervision of midwives in the city purpose of sewage disposal. The scheme will, of course, under the Midwives Act, 1902, for 12 months, at a salary of involve a great enlargement of the present sewage works at £ 100 a year in addition to his present salary as assistant Knowesthorpe. Jan. 9th. medical officer of health. Dr. R. Caton and others emphasised the great importance of an appointment such as the one proposed. Opposition was offered to the proposal on various SCOTLAND. grounds and an amendment was discussed that Dr. Mussen should be appointed to the position at a salary of f.50 a year. OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) (FROM The committee’s recommendation confirmed.
groaning,
but
school for
_________________
was,
however,
The New Snperintenclent of the Fazakerley Hospital. The port sanitary and hospitals committee’s recommendation to appoint Dr. Claude Rundle as medical superintendent at the city hospital, Fazakerley, at a salary of C400 per annum, increasing by E50 yearly to f.600, with house, coal, and lighting, was confirmed at the last meeting of the city council. Jan. 9th. __________________
LEEDS. (FROM
OUR OWN
CORRESPONDENT.)
The Leeds Sewage Schemes. WHEX in 1900 the Leeds corporation purchased the ’Gateforth estate near Selby for £ 88,000 it was confidently anticipated that the question of the disposal of the sewage of the city would be satisfactorily solved by the establishment of a sewage farm. It will be remembered that this scheme involved the laying of a conduit some 14 miles long and that the opposition to this was so strong that the corporation Bill was thrown out by a committee of the House of Lords. As was mentioned in this column on May 13th, 1905, a modification of this scheme had been drawn up, under which it was intended partially to deal with the sewage at Knowesthorpe, within the city boundary and at the present site of the sewage beds, and then to carry the modified effluent in steel pipes to Gateforth. This scheme would be opposed by the authorities at Selby who have recently sunk wells
Parliamentary Elections for Scottish Universities. THE four Scottish Universities return among them two Members to the Imperial Parliament, one being elected by Edinburgh and St. Andrews and another by Glasgow and Aberdeen. Both groups are to be fought this year and in each case a medical candidate is opposed by a layman, while party politics must complicate the medical voting. At Edinburgh and St. Andrews the sitting Member, Sir John Batty Tuke, whose medical work is known to all, is opposed by Mr. St. Loe Strachey, the editor of the Spectator, who stands as a Free Trader. In the Glasgow and Aberdeen constituency there has been no contest since 1880 but at the forthcoming election everything points to a keen contest. One candidate is Sir Henry Craik whose wide knowledge of educational matters will no doubt carry great weight, and who stands as a Tariff Reformer. The other candidate is Professor W. R. Smith who has been brought forward by a section of the electors who feel that it is desirable to have as their representative a member of the medical profession and a graduate of one or other of the universities which he represents, both of which conditions Professor Smith fulfils. Excavations at
Glasgow Royal Infirmary.
the opposition that is being met with from various quarters the directors of the Royal Infirmary are proceeding steadily with the preparations for carrying out the reconstruction scheme. The new plans necessitate the encroachment on ground formerly used as a cemetery. For many years this ground has formed a bright-green patch adjoining the infirmary and there the convalescent patients had their daily airing. It was conveyed by the corporation
Notwithstanding