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ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND SOME OTHER MATTERS.
160 Dr. Agagabow gives illustrations showing the mode of termination of the sensory nerves. These are drawn with much delicacy. The vaso-motor nerves taken from the choroid are also shown which exhibit the disposition of the ganglion cells both singly and in groups. He states finally that in many sections of the sclera taken from white cats and rabbits finely granular nerve fibres may be met with which proceed from medullated nerve trunks and which form intercommunicating networks round endothelial cells.
our science continues in its
progress is it seen that the work of medicine is becoming preventive. Our best energies are devoted to the forestalling of disease, instead of waiting, a,!S. in days gone by we were compelled to wait, until a manifested disease called for our therapeutics. In recent years, as thought and study have been devoted to the various aspects of public health, it has become obvious that endeavours to educate the masses of the people in thosematters on which the general health depends offer the best, chance of securing effective protection of the community. Medical men have consequently welcomed the aid of various PUBLIC-HOUSES AND THE SPREAD OF institutions and societies which by collecting statistics, TUBERCULOSIS. and other methods have helped to awaken THAT the public-house is a fruitful source of infection by delivering lectures, the members of the public to their responsibilities with the tubercle bacillus is well known and the returns of the to the care of family, community, and national health. English Registrar-General show that public-house servants regard little assistance in this direction has been received Singularly are specially prone to be affected by pulmonary tuberculosis. from the public press, the most powerful educative machine This is not to be wondered at when we consider that the floor we possess in other directions. So far from helping the of the lower class of public-house is covered with sawdust that cause of health, in too many cases the public press serves which in great measure is impregnated with sputum. This the quack. And even where thedust dries and is constantly being stirred up by the feet of as a medium for puffing of and editors self-respect proprietors prevents this we aredrinkers. Not only are barmen and barmaids and the treated a curious exhibition of ignorance to very generally customers of the house thus exposed to infection but the all medical topics. On the slightest hint of a new, unhappy children who are brought into the house by their upon medical discovery inaccurate and highly coloured articles in is the mothers are likewise danger. The public-house are written, holding out hopes to poor sufferers from diseases with her poor woman’s club where she can discuss neighbours social and domestic incidents ; the children cannot be incurable-in the present state of our knowledge. If the left at home and so they sit on the public-house floor press would become the vehicle of the dissemination of scientific instead of the medium by which the quack during their mothers’ gossip-time. Only the other day i robs the knowledge we should all have reason to rejoice. In the passing a large public-house in one of the main thorough- householdpublic of ignorance sanitary laws is often the cause of fares of St. Luke’s we noticed through the open door of a much disease otherwise and in the case of public bar several slatternly women drinking at the counter, infectious diseases the evil preventable be may widespread. The want of while crawling on the floor of the bar and rubbing their the most of simple hygienic rules regarding hands in the saw-dust with which it was strewn were two knowledge and cleanliness by the public as a body babies of from 18 to 24 months old. That this is not an food, ventilation, is We are therefore to see that a new astonishing. pleased uncommon occurrence those who have occasion to visit poor is about be the movement to initiated committee of by and squalid neighbourhoods well know and in the light of of the which has under Hospital Saturday Fund, such facts is it to be wondered that the race is said to be management its consideration a scheme for the establishment of a degenerating or that medieal science should have such a hard health department. It is proposed to form classes for the up-hill fight with disease?‘! Granting that these children, instruction of women in the elements of domestic hygiene, probably the offspring of degenerate beings, become infected the lecturers to be medical men. The Hospital Saturday with the bacillus of tubercle the environment in which they Fund is in touch with working men throughout London and will a in the be factor of live necessarily potent development the scheme if properly carried out ought, in the near pulmonary tuberculosis and not only will they themselves to have an important influence on the health of the suffer but they will also involve the public in great expense future, for their subsequent treatment and keep. Recently a law community generally. has been passed to prevent children under a certain age from INSANITY AND THE HEREDITARY NEUROSES obtaining intoxicants and there is legislation for the preALLIED TO IT REGARDED FROM THE vention of cruelty to children but as yet there is no law STANDPOINT OF VARIATION. to prevent ignorant mothers from leaving their offspring EVER since Morel of Belgium (1858) published his classical to play on the disease-laden floor of a public-house. treatise on degeneration in human races the attention of In another column we refer to the efforts being made to alienists and neurologists has been drawn to the study of inculcate the precepts of hygiene at an early age and many as publicans, notably those in the borough of Woolwich, post insanity a problem of what the biologists call variation. In the EdE7abicrIt 1lIetGical Journal for May and June Dr. up notices requesting their customers not to spit. But until spitting on the floor of a tavern is made a penal offence as it John Macpherson, Commissioner of Lunacy for Scotland, is at present to spit in a tramcar, there is but little hope of draws attention to the anatomical "stigmata"or physical amelioration. signs of abnormal development present in the insane, and especially in the idiot, the imbecile, and the feeble-minded. ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND SOME OTHER The absence of certain mental faculties is, says Dr. MATTERS. Macpherson, " wholly or in part correlated with the developTHE Buddhist ascribes all evil to Avidya or ignorance, and ment of the physical organisation, especially that of the whether the arguments by which he arrives at this conclu- central nervous system, and it is rare to meet with imperfect sion be valid or not there can be no doubt that a large congenital structure of the nervous system in the absence of amount of bodily sickness, with its attendant pain and bodily imperfections." The more grave the incidence of the suffering, is due to this cause. To dispel the ignorance which mental defect the more numerous and pronounced are the creates disease is part of the work of the medical profession physical malformations. Thus, as we pass up the scale from and in so doing it offers itself as a sacrifice to the cause monsters to idiots, imbeciles, and the higher classes of the which it serves. For does not its material existence depend latter we find a gradual diminution of physical stigmata of upon the existence of the ills which it alleviates ?Its reward degeneration until they disappear altogether as we emerge is the satisfaction of duty well done, and more and more as upon the normal platform of the race. The mental defects -
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our science continues in its
progress is it seen that the work of medicine is becoming preventive. Our best energies are devoted to the forestalling of disease, instead of waiting, a,!S. in days gone by we were compelled to wait, until a manifested disease called for our therapeutics. In recent years, as thought and study have been devoted to the various aspects of public health, it has become obvious that endeavours to educate the masses of the people in thosematters on which the general health depends offer the best, chance of securing effective protection of the community. Medical men have consequently welcomed the aid of various PUBLIC-HOUSES AND THE SPREAD OF institutions and societies which by collecting statistics, TUBERCULOSIS. and other methods have helped to awaken THAT the public-house is a fruitful source of infection by delivering lectures, the members of the public to their responsibilities with the tubercle bacillus is well known and the returns of the to the care of family, community, and national health. English Registrar-General show that public-house servants regard little assistance in this direction has been received Singularly are specially prone to be affected by pulmonary tuberculosis. from the public press, the most powerful educative machine This is not to be wondered at when we consider that the floor we possess in other directions. So far from helping the of the lower class of public-house is covered with sawdust that cause of health, in too many cases the public press serves which in great measure is impregnated with sputum. This the quack. And even where thedust dries and is constantly being stirred up by the feet of as a medium for puffing of and editors self-respect proprietors prevents this we aredrinkers. Not only are barmen and barmaids and the treated a curious exhibition of ignorance to very generally customers of the house thus exposed to infection but the all medical topics. On the slightest hint of a new, unhappy children who are brought into the house by their upon medical discovery inaccurate and highly coloured articles in is the mothers are likewise danger. The public-house are written, holding out hopes to poor sufferers from diseases with her poor woman’s club where she can discuss neighbours social and domestic incidents ; the children cannot be incurable-in the present state of our knowledge. If the left at home and so they sit on the public-house floor press would become the vehicle of the dissemination of scientific instead of the medium by which the quack during their mothers’ gossip-time. Only the other day i robs the knowledge we should all have reason to rejoice. In the passing a large public-house in one of the main thorough- householdpublic of ignorance sanitary laws is often the cause of fares of St. Luke’s we noticed through the open door of a much disease otherwise and in the case of public bar several slatternly women drinking at the counter, infectious diseases the evil preventable be may widespread. The want of while crawling on the floor of the bar and rubbing their the most of simple hygienic rules regarding hands in the saw-dust with which it was strewn were two knowledge and cleanliness by the public as a body babies of from 18 to 24 months old. That this is not an food, ventilation, is We are therefore to see that a new astonishing. pleased uncommon occurrence those who have occasion to visit poor is about be the movement to initiated committee of by and squalid neighbourhoods well know and in the light of of the which has under Hospital Saturday Fund, such facts is it to be wondered that the race is said to be management its consideration a scheme for the establishment of a degenerating or that medieal science should have such a hard health department. It is proposed to form classes for the up-hill fight with disease?‘! Granting that these children, instruction of women in the elements of domestic hygiene, probably the offspring of degenerate beings, become infected the lecturers to be medical men. The Hospital Saturday with the bacillus of tubercle the environment in which they Fund is in touch with working men throughout London and will a in the be factor of live necessarily potent development the scheme if properly carried out ought, in the near pulmonary tuberculosis and not only will they themselves to have an important influence on the health of the suffer but they will also involve the public in great expense future, for their subsequent treatment and keep. Recently a law community generally. has been passed to prevent children under a certain age from INSANITY AND THE HEREDITARY NEUROSES obtaining intoxicants and there is legislation for the preALLIED TO IT REGARDED FROM THE vention of cruelty to children but as yet there is no law STANDPOINT OF VARIATION. to prevent ignorant mothers from leaving their offspring EVER since Morel of Belgium (1858) published his classical to play on the disease-laden floor of a public-house. treatise on degeneration in human races the attention of In another column we refer to the efforts being made to alienists and neurologists has been drawn to the study of inculcate the precepts of hygiene at an early age and many as publicans, notably those in the borough of Woolwich, post insanity a problem of what the biologists call variation. In the EdE7abicrIt 1lIetGical Journal for May and June Dr. up notices requesting their customers not to spit. But until spitting on the floor of a tavern is made a penal offence as it John Macpherson, Commissioner of Lunacy for Scotland, is at present to spit in a tramcar, there is but little hope of draws attention to the anatomical "stigmata"or physical amelioration. signs of abnormal development present in the insane, and especially in the idiot, the imbecile, and the feeble-minded. ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND SOME OTHER The absence of certain mental faculties is, says Dr. MATTERS. Macpherson, " wholly or in part correlated with the developTHE Buddhist ascribes all evil to Avidya or ignorance, and ment of the physical organisation, especially that of the whether the arguments by which he arrives at this conclu- central nervous system, and it is rare to meet with imperfect sion be valid or not there can be no doubt that a large congenital structure of the nervous system in the absence of amount of bodily sickness, with its attendant pain and bodily imperfections." The more grave the incidence of the suffering, is due to this cause. To dispel the ignorance which mental defect the more numerous and pronounced are the creates disease is part of the work of the medical profession physical malformations. Thus, as we pass up the scale from and in so doing it offers itself as a sacrifice to the cause monsters to idiots, imbeciles, and the higher classes of the which it serves. For does not its material existence depend latter we find a gradual diminution of physical stigmata of upon the existence of the ills which it alleviates ?Its reward degeneration until they disappear altogether as we emerge is the satisfaction of duty well done, and more and more as upon the normal platform of the race. The mental defects -
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