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"NATURE PLEASURES IN A RIVERSIDE GARDEN."
1239
THE NOTTINGHAM SCHOOL BOAED AND MEDICAL CERTIFICATES.
injuries. The child had been insufficiently fed for contact with it is followed by severe general symptoms,. time before his death. Dr. T. P. Harvey, who assisted and in the case of one boy in the south of France, The defence to all this was a whose case was detailed in THE LANCET,3 after a number at the necropsy, agreed. denial of cruelty and allegations of spite and ill-feeling of caterpillars had fallen on his chest while climbing a tree against the chief witnesses. The magistrates, however, there ensued violent irritation, general swelling, fever,. thought it was a case of great and gross cruelty and sent somnolence, delirium, and death in a few hours in spite of the woman Batt to hard labour for six months. energetic medical treatment. Although fortunately we do, not meet with such severe cases in this country, the effects are so unpleasant to the victim and the diagnosis is often so THE NOTTINGHAM SCHOOL BOARD AND difficult for the practitioner that a word of warning to thoseMEDICAL CERTIFICATES. most likely to suffer will not be superfluous. THE Nottingham Daily GUQ/J’dian of April 18tb, 1896, in its report of the proceedings of the Nottingham School Board MANCHESTER NIGHT ASYLUM. relates that the following resolution was passed by the the lesser Manchester institutions this fulfils a. AMONG board by a large majority-10 votes to z’’That in all useful and beneficent purpose. As the report read at the, cases of illness being assigned as reason for absence of the other week says : "There always exist, annual meeting scholars and of a medical certificate being required to to numbers of people out of work and will continue exist, substantiate such excuse the board shall pay for the medical times too to who are at Board has poor pay even for a night’s lodging certificate requested." The Nottingham School set an example of justice in this matter which cannot be too and who, rather than go to the workhouse wards, would preferto stay all night under any shelter, however comfortless. soon followed by all school boards. These people are not paupers and do not wish to be pauperised, they are seeking work, and with that object-’ CATERPILLAR ERYTHEMA. It is mainly to come to and pass through our large towns." ATTENTION has been directed by the interesting corre-help such people with a night’s lodging that this institution. spondence in these columns1 to the occurrence ofexists. It can give through the winter months, from, erythematous and urticarial rashes in susceptible indi- October to March inclusive, "a warm and comfort-viduals after handling certain hairy plants primula able lodging, and fire and food, to one hundred and obconica and sinensis. It seems that in these unlucky fifty people." Comparatively few women make use of, unthe is it is not so well known as it ought, of a followed because it, perhaps persons sting primula by cutaneous results a rash is be there is as caused to that a separate room for women, and, pleasant just painful in everyone by brushing against the hairs of a stinging- partly because fewer women than men lead the wandering: nettle. It is well, therefore, for the practitioner to bear this life often forced upon the latter by want of work. Last yearcause in mind when dealing with cases of erythema on the 4702 persons were relieved. This can be done with an, hands and parts of the body accessible to the hairs. There income of .E.200 a year, but from the deaths and removals of, is another very common cause which must also be borne in old subscribers an appeal for more funds has become necesmind when the patient is a schoolboy or an entomologist. sary. At the end of the year the institution was in debt toMany of the common hairy caterpillars in this country when the treasurer to the amount of £70. handled 11 sting" with their hairs just as the nettle and "NATURE PLEASURES IN A RIVERSIDE primula do. The hair penetrates some layers of the skin and breaks off, leaving a little piece projecting. If the GARDEN." hand is passed over the face the stumps of hair projecting have on WE several occasions referred with pleasure to thefrom the skin stin the face in a similar manner. Soon an papers which Mr. W. J. C. Miller, the registrar of theintolerable itchin begins, more extensive than the parts General Medical Council, contributes from time to time to’ actually irritated ; vigorous rubbing goes on until in a short "Nature Notes." Richmond-on-Thames is a little less thantime the arms, face, neck, and often chest become covered ten miles out of London, yet if we did not know the locale of’ with a red eruption in which minute nodules can be the about which Mr. Miller discourses1 we should be garden detected. The hairs and the poison may even be trans- inclined to think of it as at least five times that distance from ferred (as Mr. Lawford has shown in the case of Bombyx our smoky metropolis. The mere mention of evening primrosesRubi) to the conjunctiva, the hair ultimately becoming and clematis in Mr. Miller’s picturesque language is refreshingencapsuled in a little nodule of fibrous tissue. The I to the weary town-dweller and the author evidently extracts rash is often attended with considerable swelling and from the contemplation of them a pleasure and delight which slight rise of temperature, and, as Dr. Dukes of Rugby all must envy. Amongst feathered life too he is quite at pointed out,2 may lead to an erroneous diagnosis of rotheln. home, and the stately birds which inhabit certain parts ofT It would be well if medical officers of schools warned the our great river and which the poet addresses at eventideboys of the caterpillars which should not be handled and of " Day is dying; float, 0 swan, along the ruby river, the risk they run in rubbing themselves when the skin is Requiem chanting to the day; day, the mighty giver." The chief British offenders are the common must call to irritated. mind, as they slowly drift past the garden,, "woolly bear," the caterpillar of the tiger moth (Arctia Wordsworth’s lines : caia), and its near relations ; almost all the Bombyx group, " The swan on still St. Mary’s Lake Floats double-swan and shadow " including the oak eggar, fox moth, drinker and lappet moths; and the Liparis group, including the common gold tail"and Nowhere, says the author, can be better realised the. "brown tail." The hair of some foreign caterpillars has much song which Tennyson phrases : more severe effects. Gangrene has been reported from con" Summer is coming, summer is coming, I know it, I know it, I know it ; tact with the hairy Indian Shoa Poka, and the Australian Light again, leaf again, life again, love again:Yes, my wild little vulnerans is credited with Lasiocampa producing fatal poet."* results. On the Continent there is a very common caterpillar, And the life and songs of other birds in his garden are the Bombyx processionea, which fortunately does not appeal described in sympathetic and felicitous language. Such to have reached this country. The erythema resulting from simple pleasures as these, which can be obtained by.
other some
’
-
"
"
1
THE LANCET, April 10th and 17th, 1896. 2 THE LANCET, Oct. 29th, 1881.
3 1
THE LANCET, July 26th, 1862. from Nature Notes, April, 1896.
Reprinted
VACCINATION IN IPSWICH.—DEATHS UNDER A’NSTIET1CS.
1240
quiet contemplation of nature, cannot but help vastly emergency the anaesthetic was deemed advisable. Death to repair the waste of energy entailed by a busy life was "due primarily to sudden paroxysm brought on by in an overcrowded metropolis rendered hideous by the forcible alteration in the position of the neck and discordant pandemonium to which we have long called only secondarily to the ansesthetic." We are not told - attention. Such pleasures cost nothing but the training whether the faulty posture was at once rectified before the The benefits, both moral and operation was proceeded with. Similar conditions arise in of an observing eye. ,physical, are of untold value. operations undertaken for the relief of goitre and have caused grave consequences. A very similar VACCINATION IN IPSWICH.
case
is
reported
Warrington. Unfortunately the particulars supplied The patient, a man aged sixtyare quite inadequate. for relief at the infirmary at Warrington. three, applied from
IT must be somewhat trying to the self-respect of boards guardians, whose duty it is to enforce the Vaccination He had suffered from carcinoma of the throat Acts, to be reminded of their responsibility, and perhaps two years, ’ and presumably stenosis had arisen as even of their neglect, by sanitary authorities. Yet this for. it was proposed to perform tracheotomy. The junior has occurred over and over again the latest instance house surgeon gave chloroform. The quantity used and ’being at Ipswich last week. when the Public Health the method employed are not mentioned nor are any parti- Committee of the Corporation, alarmed at the neglect of culars given as to the symptoms which appeared. We are ’vaccination in the borough, considered it their duty to draw told that when the operation was commenced the attention of the guardians to the risk occasioned to the simply The medical testimony given at the ._nhabitants of Ipswich by the presence of a large number of respiration ceased. we are informed, that spasm of the glottis unvaccinated children. At the meeting of the guardians inquest showed, was the cause of death. The extreme importance of accurate when this communication was brought forward Mr. Preston and thorough accounts of all such fatalities being furnished Thomas, one of the general inspectors of the Local Govern- to the medical press is too obvious to need to be dilated upon, ment Board, in answer to a guardian, who was evidently we regret that we have not received fuller details. and somewhat misinformed, put before them some of the argu.ments in favour of vaccination, and it is to be hoped that THE National Society for Aid to the Sick and Wounded in his words have not fallen upon absolutely stony ground. War has sent out two surgeons to Bulawayo to assist in the Mr. Thomas estimated from the vaccination returns that care and treatment of the wounded. The gentlemen selected - there were in all probability some 5000 unvaccinated are Mr. W. Greenwood Sutcliffe, F.R.C.S., and Mr. W. children in Ipswich, and he pointed out that the presence of Redpath, M.R.C.S. Eng., L.R.C.P. Lond. Both of these this inflammable material was a serious matter to those have been house surgeons at one of our largest gentlemen "responsible for its existence. He observed that it was metropolitan hospitals, and the former has also been house hardly to be expected that ignorant and careless parents surgeon at the Hull Infirmary. They have taken with would have their children vaccinated unless they were com- them a large supply of medical necessaries, including pelled to conform to the provisions of the Acts, which, he antiseptic dressings, &c., and will proceed to Bulawayo as the guardians, have neither been repealed nor < reminded rapidly as possible. They left Southampton by the s.s. Moor suspended. We are glad to see, too, that one of the mem- on Saturday last. - bers endeavoured by a reference to the Gloucester calamity to impress upon the guardians the commercial aspect of - THE executive committee of the National Society for ,,neglected vaccination, and insisted that if an outbreak of I Employment of Epileptics announces that the foundationsmall-pox occurred among the infantile population of stone of the Home for Women will be laid with Masonic Ipswich the guardians would be mainly responsible for honours by the Right Honourable Lord Addington, Provincial ’it. We wonder how many of the Ipswich guardians have Grand Master of Buckinghamshire, assisted by the officers taken the trouble to study the question of vaccination or of the Provincial Grand Lodge, on Tuesday, May 26th, how many of them possess a copy of the Vaccination Acts ?7 at 4.15 P.M., at the Colony, Chalfont St. Peter. A train It is lamentably suggestive that the administration of the leaves Baker-street at 2.29 for Chorley Wood Station, and "Vaccination Acts should be entrusted to a body who have to carriages can be provided at the station for those who ’be reminded of their duties by the Public Health Committee accept invitations prior to Thursday, May 21st. Reply of the corporation. Let us trust the warning may not be too should be made to the Secretary, 12, Buckingham-street, - late. Strand, W.C.
,of
-
___
-
DEATHS UNDER ANÆSTHETICS.
AN example
of this form of death is afforded by the patient at the Yarmouth Hospital the particulars of which have been kindly sent us by Dr. K. W. Monsarrat, the A man aged sixty-three applied for relief xhouse surgeon. from urgent dyspnoea arising from pressure upon the ...Larynx due to carcinomatous glands causing constriction. The primary cancer of the tongue had been successfully removed ten months previously. Owing to the laryngeal stenosis the man had several times been nearly asphyxi-
doss of
a
Tracheotomy was decided upon and chloroform accordingly administered from a towel. The man went under in about four minutes, taking the anaesthetic well. As a preliminary to the operation the head was extended, a sandbag being placed under the neck. Dyspnaea at once increased, the face became cyanosed, and in a few seconds respiration ceased entirely. The operation was rapidly proceeded with and then artificial respiration was practised. The patient never rallied. Respiration ceased thirty seconds before the heart stopped. The operation not being one of
ated. was
A CONVERSAZIONE will be given by the Medical Society of London on Monday, May 18th, at the rooms of the society, 11, Chandos-street, Cavendish-square, at 9.15 P.M. The Oration will be delivered by Dr. W. H. Allchin on "The " Breaking Strain" at 8.30 P.M. Music by the "Bijou" orchestra will be provided and smoking will be permitted at 10 o’clock. ____
THE third International Congress of Psychology will meet in Munich from Aug. 4th to Aug. 7th inclusive. The titles of 132 papers are announced already, several of them being by English and American writers. The general secretary is Dr. Freiherr von Schrenck-Notzing, Max Josephstrasse,
Munich. ____
AN application for election as a member of the Pathological Society of London having been received from a duly qualified lady the question of the desirability of admitting female medical practitioners to the society will be submitted to the annual general meeting of the society to be held on
Tuesday, May 19th.
THE NOTTINGHAM SCHOOL BOAED AND MEDICAL CERTIFICATES.
injuries. The child had been insufficiently fed for contact with it is followed by severe general symptoms,. time before his death. Dr. T. P. Harvey, who assisted and in the case of one boy in the south of France, The defence to all this was a whose case was detailed in THE LANCET,3 after a number at the necropsy, agreed. denial of cruelty and allegations of spite and ill-feeling of caterpillars had fallen on his chest while climbing a tree against the chief witnesses. The magistrates, however, there ensued violent irritation, general swelling, fever,. thought it was a case of great and gross cruelty and sent somnolence, delirium, and death in a few hours in spite of the woman Batt to hard labour for six months. energetic medical treatment. Although fortunately we do, not meet with such severe cases in this country, the effects are so unpleasant to the victim and the diagnosis is often so THE NOTTINGHAM SCHOOL BOARD AND difficult for the practitioner that a word of warning to thoseMEDICAL CERTIFICATES. most likely to suffer will not be superfluous. THE Nottingham Daily GUQ/J’dian of April 18tb, 1896, in its report of the proceedings of the Nottingham School Board MANCHESTER NIGHT ASYLUM. relates that the following resolution was passed by the the lesser Manchester institutions this fulfils a. AMONG board by a large majority-10 votes to z’’That in all useful and beneficent purpose. As the report read at the, cases of illness being assigned as reason for absence of the other week says : "There always exist, annual meeting scholars and of a medical certificate being required to to numbers of people out of work and will continue exist, substantiate such excuse the board shall pay for the medical times too to who are at Board has poor pay even for a night’s lodging certificate requested." The Nottingham School set an example of justice in this matter which cannot be too and who, rather than go to the workhouse wards, would preferto stay all night under any shelter, however comfortless. soon followed by all school boards. These people are not paupers and do not wish to be pauperised, they are seeking work, and with that object-’ CATERPILLAR ERYTHEMA. It is mainly to come to and pass through our large towns." ATTENTION has been directed by the interesting corre-help such people with a night’s lodging that this institution. spondence in these columns1 to the occurrence ofexists. It can give through the winter months, from, erythematous and urticarial rashes in susceptible indi- October to March inclusive, "a warm and comfort-viduals after handling certain hairy plants primula able lodging, and fire and food, to one hundred and obconica and sinensis. It seems that in these unlucky fifty people." Comparatively few women make use of, unthe is it is not so well known as it ought, of a followed because it, perhaps persons sting primula by cutaneous results a rash is be there is as caused to that a separate room for women, and, pleasant just painful in everyone by brushing against the hairs of a stinging- partly because fewer women than men lead the wandering: nettle. It is well, therefore, for the practitioner to bear this life often forced upon the latter by want of work. Last yearcause in mind when dealing with cases of erythema on the 4702 persons were relieved. This can be done with an, hands and parts of the body accessible to the hairs. There income of .E.200 a year, but from the deaths and removals of, is another very common cause which must also be borne in old subscribers an appeal for more funds has become necesmind when the patient is a schoolboy or an entomologist. sary. At the end of the year the institution was in debt toMany of the common hairy caterpillars in this country when the treasurer to the amount of £70. handled 11 sting" with their hairs just as the nettle and "NATURE PLEASURES IN A RIVERSIDE primula do. The hair penetrates some layers of the skin and breaks off, leaving a little piece projecting. If the GARDEN." hand is passed over the face the stumps of hair projecting have on WE several occasions referred with pleasure to thefrom the skin stin the face in a similar manner. Soon an papers which Mr. W. J. C. Miller, the registrar of theintolerable itchin begins, more extensive than the parts General Medical Council, contributes from time to time to’ actually irritated ; vigorous rubbing goes on until in a short "Nature Notes." Richmond-on-Thames is a little less thantime the arms, face, neck, and often chest become covered ten miles out of London, yet if we did not know the locale of’ with a red eruption in which minute nodules can be the about which Mr. Miller discourses1 we should be garden detected. The hairs and the poison may even be trans- inclined to think of it as at least five times that distance from ferred (as Mr. Lawford has shown in the case of Bombyx our smoky metropolis. The mere mention of evening primrosesRubi) to the conjunctiva, the hair ultimately becoming and clematis in Mr. Miller’s picturesque language is refreshingencapsuled in a little nodule of fibrous tissue. The I to the weary town-dweller and the author evidently extracts rash is often attended with considerable swelling and from the contemplation of them a pleasure and delight which slight rise of temperature, and, as Dr. Dukes of Rugby all must envy. Amongst feathered life too he is quite at pointed out,2 may lead to an erroneous diagnosis of rotheln. home, and the stately birds which inhabit certain parts ofT It would be well if medical officers of schools warned the our great river and which the poet addresses at eventideboys of the caterpillars which should not be handled and of " Day is dying; float, 0 swan, along the ruby river, the risk they run in rubbing themselves when the skin is Requiem chanting to the day; day, the mighty giver." The chief British offenders are the common must call to irritated. mind, as they slowly drift past the garden,, "woolly bear," the caterpillar of the tiger moth (Arctia Wordsworth’s lines : caia), and its near relations ; almost all the Bombyx group, " The swan on still St. Mary’s Lake Floats double-swan and shadow " including the oak eggar, fox moth, drinker and lappet moths; and the Liparis group, including the common gold tail"and Nowhere, says the author, can be better realised the. "brown tail." The hair of some foreign caterpillars has much song which Tennyson phrases : more severe effects. Gangrene has been reported from con" Summer is coming, summer is coming, I know it, I know it, I know it ; tact with the hairy Indian Shoa Poka, and the Australian Light again, leaf again, life again, love again:Yes, my wild little vulnerans is credited with Lasiocampa producing fatal poet."* results. On the Continent there is a very common caterpillar, And the life and songs of other birds in his garden are the Bombyx processionea, which fortunately does not appeal described in sympathetic and felicitous language. Such to have reached this country. The erythema resulting from simple pleasures as these, which can be obtained by.
other some
’
-
"
"
1
THE LANCET, April 10th and 17th, 1896. 2 THE LANCET, Oct. 29th, 1881.
3 1
THE LANCET, July 26th, 1862. from Nature Notes, April, 1896.
Reprinted
VACCINATION IN IPSWICH.—DEATHS UNDER A’NSTIET1CS.
1240
quiet contemplation of nature, cannot but help vastly emergency the anaesthetic was deemed advisable. Death to repair the waste of energy entailed by a busy life was "due primarily to sudden paroxysm brought on by in an overcrowded metropolis rendered hideous by the forcible alteration in the position of the neck and discordant pandemonium to which we have long called only secondarily to the ansesthetic." We are not told - attention. Such pleasures cost nothing but the training whether the faulty posture was at once rectified before the The benefits, both moral and operation was proceeded with. Similar conditions arise in of an observing eye. ,physical, are of untold value. operations undertaken for the relief of goitre and have caused grave consequences. A very similar VACCINATION IN IPSWICH.
case
is
reported
Warrington. Unfortunately the particulars supplied The patient, a man aged sixtyare quite inadequate. for relief at the infirmary at Warrington. three, applied from
IT must be somewhat trying to the self-respect of boards guardians, whose duty it is to enforce the Vaccination He had suffered from carcinoma of the throat Acts, to be reminded of their responsibility, and perhaps two years, ’ and presumably stenosis had arisen as even of their neglect, by sanitary authorities. Yet this for. it was proposed to perform tracheotomy. The junior has occurred over and over again the latest instance house surgeon gave chloroform. The quantity used and ’being at Ipswich last week. when the Public Health the method employed are not mentioned nor are any parti- Committee of the Corporation, alarmed at the neglect of culars given as to the symptoms which appeared. We are ’vaccination in the borough, considered it their duty to draw told that when the operation was commenced the attention of the guardians to the risk occasioned to the simply The medical testimony given at the ._nhabitants of Ipswich by the presence of a large number of respiration ceased. we are informed, that spasm of the glottis unvaccinated children. At the meeting of the guardians inquest showed, was the cause of death. The extreme importance of accurate when this communication was brought forward Mr. Preston and thorough accounts of all such fatalities being furnished Thomas, one of the general inspectors of the Local Govern- to the medical press is too obvious to need to be dilated upon, ment Board, in answer to a guardian, who was evidently we regret that we have not received fuller details. and somewhat misinformed, put before them some of the argu.ments in favour of vaccination, and it is to be hoped that THE National Society for Aid to the Sick and Wounded in his words have not fallen upon absolutely stony ground. War has sent out two surgeons to Bulawayo to assist in the Mr. Thomas estimated from the vaccination returns that care and treatment of the wounded. The gentlemen selected - there were in all probability some 5000 unvaccinated are Mr. W. Greenwood Sutcliffe, F.R.C.S., and Mr. W. children in Ipswich, and he pointed out that the presence of Redpath, M.R.C.S. Eng., L.R.C.P. Lond. Both of these this inflammable material was a serious matter to those have been house surgeons at one of our largest gentlemen "responsible for its existence. He observed that it was metropolitan hospitals, and the former has also been house hardly to be expected that ignorant and careless parents surgeon at the Hull Infirmary. They have taken with would have their children vaccinated unless they were com- them a large supply of medical necessaries, including pelled to conform to the provisions of the Acts, which, he antiseptic dressings, &c., and will proceed to Bulawayo as the guardians, have neither been repealed nor < reminded rapidly as possible. They left Southampton by the s.s. Moor suspended. We are glad to see, too, that one of the mem- on Saturday last. - bers endeavoured by a reference to the Gloucester calamity to impress upon the guardians the commercial aspect of - THE executive committee of the National Society for ,,neglected vaccination, and insisted that if an outbreak of I Employment of Epileptics announces that the foundationsmall-pox occurred among the infantile population of stone of the Home for Women will be laid with Masonic Ipswich the guardians would be mainly responsible for honours by the Right Honourable Lord Addington, Provincial ’it. We wonder how many of the Ipswich guardians have Grand Master of Buckinghamshire, assisted by the officers taken the trouble to study the question of vaccination or of the Provincial Grand Lodge, on Tuesday, May 26th, how many of them possess a copy of the Vaccination Acts ?7 at 4.15 P.M., at the Colony, Chalfont St. Peter. A train It is lamentably suggestive that the administration of the leaves Baker-street at 2.29 for Chorley Wood Station, and "Vaccination Acts should be entrusted to a body who have to carriages can be provided at the station for those who ’be reminded of their duties by the Public Health Committee accept invitations prior to Thursday, May 21st. Reply of the corporation. Let us trust the warning may not be too should be made to the Secretary, 12, Buckingham-street, - late. Strand, W.C.
,of
-
___
-
DEATHS UNDER ANÆSTHETICS.
AN example
of this form of death is afforded by the patient at the Yarmouth Hospital the particulars of which have been kindly sent us by Dr. K. W. Monsarrat, the A man aged sixty-three applied for relief xhouse surgeon. from urgent dyspnoea arising from pressure upon the ...Larynx due to carcinomatous glands causing constriction. The primary cancer of the tongue had been successfully removed ten months previously. Owing to the laryngeal stenosis the man had several times been nearly asphyxi-
doss of
a
Tracheotomy was decided upon and chloroform accordingly administered from a towel. The man went under in about four minutes, taking the anaesthetic well. As a preliminary to the operation the head was extended, a sandbag being placed under the neck. Dyspnaea at once increased, the face became cyanosed, and in a few seconds respiration ceased entirely. The operation was rapidly proceeded with and then artificial respiration was practised. The patient never rallied. Respiration ceased thirty seconds before the heart stopped. The operation not being one of
ated. was
A CONVERSAZIONE will be given by the Medical Society of London on Monday, May 18th, at the rooms of the society, 11, Chandos-street, Cavendish-square, at 9.15 P.M. The Oration will be delivered by Dr. W. H. Allchin on "The " Breaking Strain" at 8.30 P.M. Music by the "Bijou" orchestra will be provided and smoking will be permitted at 10 o’clock. ____
THE third International Congress of Psychology will meet in Munich from Aug. 4th to Aug. 7th inclusive. The titles of 132 papers are announced already, several of them being by English and American writers. The general secretary is Dr. Freiherr von Schrenck-Notzing, Max Josephstrasse,
Munich. ____
AN application for election as a member of the Pathological Society of London having been received from a duly qualified lady the question of the desirability of admitting female medical practitioners to the society will be submitted to the annual general meeting of the society to be held on
Tuesday, May 19th.