PROPOSED UNION OF MEDICAL SOCIETIES.

311 courage of the average inmate of a hospital is the quiet manner in which he accepts the verdict of the surgeons as to the necessity for an operation. He comes to the hospital perchance because he has had difficulty with his "Ne quid nimis." bowels or because he has noticed that his urine is dark coloured. Two days later he is told that a " serious operation PROPOSED UNION OF MEDICAL SOCIETIES. must be performed." He is very likely the bread-winner, AT a meeting of the representatives of the various and he makes up his mind that as he cannot work in societies held on Dec. 19th, 1905, an organising committee his present condition he will face death. So he just tells was appointed to draw up a definite and detailed scheme on his wife and resigns himself into the hands of those who, he the lines published in THE LANCET on July 29th, 1905, feels, know better than himself. Truly to conduct such as and with this we the words of after consultation discussion each Milton: 310, apply society may p. which has expressed its willingness to join under certain Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail Or knock the breast, no weakness, no contempt." varying conditions. One of the first essentials is to show that the scheme is likely to be a financial success. A Our patients," says Dr. McMurchy, " are our masters in reply post-card has been posted by the honorary secretaries courage," and, indeed, to work in a hospital is to receive to over 5000 individuals asking for an immediate reply many a lesson in contentment, in patience under suffering, to certain questions as to the probability of their joining and in courage in bearing up in the most adverse circumthe new society as Fellows or members. We under- stances. Well may Dr. McMurchy talk of the Guild of the stand that a Fellow will be asked to pay .f.33s. per Brave. annum for the privilege of attending discussions at all sections, of the free use of the general library, and of THE VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT. receiving the proceedings and transactions of the society. A PROPOSAL has been put forward by Dr. F. Churchill A member of a section will be asked to pay £1 ls. per the Tactical Society of Edinburgh for utilising before annum for the privilege of taking part in the proceedings of the young men toilers in our crowded the services of that section, of receiving its publications, and of using the general reading room. Such a member will be entitled cities, many of whom are living in lodgings under to join other sections at a subscription of 10s. 6d. for each very insanitary conditions, by providing accommodation additional section and to join the general library at a for them in barracks designed and conducted very much subscription of £1 1s. Every member of a society taking on a club principle, similar in all respects to the " Rowton These should be erected in suitable and healthy part in the amalgamation who desires to become a Fellow of Houses." where young men could be housed and boarded the new society or a member of the corresponding section localities were being instructed and systematically drilled will be entitled to do so without election. Individuals while they and This has an important bearing also on the trained. elected subsequently to the constitution of the new society of the urban labouring classes. - Supposing a conwill have to pay entrance fees. As far as can be seen at housing site in the suburbs of large towns to be selected for present only original members of a section and those who venient the erection of such buildings and the capital provided as a are subsequently elected members of it will have the power to vote on matters directly affecting the affairs of such a financial investment by philanthropic effort the Government might be asked to increase the capitation grant by 6d. a day section. (£9 2s. per head per annum) with the view of providing lodging for, and turning out, 50,000 efficient volunteers. THE GUILD OF THE BRAVE. Dr. Churchill considers that if this were done his project UNDER the above title we have received an article from might be carried out at a relatively small cost to the State. Dr. Helen McMurchy of Toronto pointing out the extra- It is needless to add that the scheme, if favourably viewed ordinary heroism exhibited by hospital patients as well as by the War Office, would have to be worked out very caretheir keen sympathy in the plight of their fellow patients fully, especially as regards its practicability and financial and, sometimes, in the labours of the medical men and details, before its adoption. nurses. Every visiting or resident medical officer must have noted this and Dr. McMurchy’s words, addressed to an THERAPEUTIC FASTING. imaginary house surgeon, will have the force of truth. UNDER the heading of Common Colds in our issue of "Yesterday you lost a public ward patient,she writes, "and Dec. as you passed on your round from the bed of death to those 23rd, 1905, p. 1854, we commented on a somewhat method of treating colds recommended in America by heroic whom death had spared a very sick man looked at you Charles Dr. E. Page. We have since found that by a gently and, forgetting his own desperate plight, said to you the American Medical Record of the same date coincidence softly, ’You are disappointed, doctor.’ The sympathy of that brave man went far to make you go on with your contained an article by Dr. Page on the Curative Treatment work." Many house surgeons can remember instances where of Pneumonia. He has also written to us from Boston the sympathy of one patient with another has been of the expressing the opinion that pneumonia is mainly due to the most practical sort, and nothing delights an inmate of a use of " excessive clothing,"and he proposes to treat it by hospital, as a rule, more than to be given some detail to a combination of hydrotherapy and fasting. His method of attend to in the treatment of another inmate. We re- hydrotherapy consists of local cooling, not chilling by means ceived from another correspondent this week an account of of ice-packs but persistent cooling by a cold compress a recent occurrence in a large general hospital, and the applied over the entire chest in front, the compress a has similar Two men were episode bearing. working to be wetted with cold water as often as it becomes in a lift when it fell with them for a distance of about hot until the walls of the engorged blood-vessels have 50 feet. They were taken out and brought to the been braced to the point of resuming their normal calibre. hospital. One died before he could be got up to the ward. When this stage of the treatment has been reached it is The other, a shattered mass of humanity, was put to bed considered that the patient is convalescent and out of to see if anything could be done for him. On recovering danger provided that his therapeutic fast is not prematurely consciousness he said to the house surgeon who was sitting broken. With regard to food, Dr. Page says that from the by his bed, "How’s my mate!"" and five minutes later time of Hippocrates to our own day therapeutic fasting has he had rejoined him. Perhaps the most signal proof of the been the sheet-anchor of every expert sick-room dietist in

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