ROYAL COLLEGE OF OBSTETRICIANS AND GYNÆCOLOGISTS

182 When she leaves the

she may need she may need to go to the laboratory so that a specimen may be taken from the child ; or she may need advice on mothercraft ; or she may need to go to the orthoptic or the audiometry room. All these services are close at hand and easily found. The almoner has her office in the same corridor as the doctors, and the mothercraft department is at its end. The laboratory, the orthoptic room, and the audiometry room are in the other arm of the corridor in which she had the child weighed. On the surgical floor she will find the surgical instrument maker there, as well. The mothercraft department, consisting of a series of terrazzo cubicles and an aseptic-looking store, does not at first sight seem to match its name : but friendly is as friendly does. This department is in the charge of a sister who knows all about her subject, and has a gift for passing it on. In the privacy of a cubicle a mother can demonstrate her methods of feeding her baby and be helped to improve it, or she can give a detailed account of her difficulties and receive friendly and reassuring advice. Test meals can also be prepared with equipment provided in the department, and the mother can be taught by practical demonstration how to avoid errors. When she finally leaves the department the mother goes to the dispensary, at ground-floor level, for any medicines her child needs, and leaves by way of the appointments office, making a new appointment to

see

the

almoner ;

consulting-room

or

(if necessary) as she goes. This new department, planned with such kindly regard

Fig. 3-Corridor

outside consulting-rooms, showing cubicles when children are undressed.

on each side of the corridor, can be in session at the same time ; and the live assistants of each can also be at work

consulting-rooms which line the corridor. consulting-room contains a table, chairs for doctor, mother, and child, an examining-couch with a movable light above it, a basin, a long X-ray viewingscreen (on which successive radiographs can be compared), and a telephone. The consultants’ rooms have, in addition, chairs for students and a blackboard (fig. 1). The telephones are connected with a secretarial room. After seeing a patient the consultant dictates a letter to the family doctor into the telephone, and this is recorded by dictaphone at the other end. There stenographers-undisturbed by demands to come and take a letter "-rapidly transcribe the messages as they come through. Contrary to usual custom, the consulting-rooms are placed in the central well, and the almoners, clerks, and secretaries have the peripheral rooms, with a view of the outside world. By a clever device (fig. 2) every consulting-room has studio-lighting from the north, and in the ten smaller

Each

"

all

are

air-conditioned. THE

PATIENT And HIS

MOTHER

When a mother has had the child weighed by the sister and has received all the necessary papers she is called into the hive where the doctors are at work. Chairs are set out in the wide corridor where she may sit and wait her turn. Outside each consulting-room door is a little terrazzo cubicle containing a chair and a shelf (fig. 3). When her turn comes the mother undresses her child in the cubicle, leaving his clothes on the shelf. X ext patient," flashing on above the consultingA signal room door, tells her when to go in ; and just inside the door she finds a table on which she is asked to place her handbag and any other possessions she did not care to leave outside. Thus with hands free she is able to bring the child to the doctor, sit down, and give her entire attention to the matter in hand. ‘’

for the anxieties, needs, and home commitments of mothers, is but a beginning. It is hoped in time to provide outpatient operating-theatres and theatres for clinical treatment, as well as an up-to-date records department, reception-department, and dispensary ; and plans for these are now under consideration by the Ministry of Health. Drawing its patients from every corner of the world, let alone these islands, Great Meanwhile it Ormond Street deserves good quarters. has what matters even more-good people to run it and a

good spirit. ROYAL COLLEGE OF OBSTETRICIANS AND GYNÆCOLOGISTS

AT the silver jubilee dinner held in London on July 14 the toast of The College was proposed by the LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord Simonds), newly admitted a fellow in recognition of the part he played twenty-five years ago in advancing the college’s plea for incorporation. How long the gestation and how difficult the birth, he said ; but how farseeing had been those men who saw that this neglected study should have its own college; and how remarkable its growth. Housed at first in the Manchester consulting-room of Sir William Fletcher Shaw, and then in its present modest dwelling, its influence had spread widely ; and alone of the Royal Colleges it had regional councils in Commonwealth countries as well as fellows in almost every land acknowledging allegiance to the Crown. Now the infant was breaking out of its swaddling-clothes and would soon be housed in a stately mansion in Regent’s Park. He could not doubt the to the response college’s appeal for support, for the claim was pre-eminent-the claim of the mother and her child. In his reply, Mr. ARTHUR GrEMMELL, the president, said that many of the advances in medicine and surgery have sprung from the two world wars ; but the college had different origins. It came into being through a quickened realisation of the tragedy and waste in the homes of the people through the high mortality of childbearing and the ill health that so often followed. The founders were convinced that the remedy lay in longer and better standards. In its training of obstetricians and in

higher

183

Design for the

new

building.

fully resident postgraduate training in hospital, the college had initiated a method which had proved its worth, and in its twenty-five years it had also

college’sjournal, the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology of the British Empire, Sir VVILLIAM FLETCHER SHAW said that the four main objects of the founders were :

encouraged research, the interchange of knowledge through travel, and the association of obstetricians and gynaecologists throughout the Commonwealth. Wholly independent of State financial aid or control, it was a forum of free speech within the profession and could offer independent advice to Governments. Hitherto the

(1) To form a portal through which all must pass who wished to be consultants in this branch of medicine, this portal to consist of equal parts of training and examination. (" The curse of this age is assessment by examination alone, which unduly favours a certain type of mind, to the exclusion of other and equally desirable characteristics.")

insistence

on

fellows and members had financed its accommodation, but now it needed a building better suited to its evergrowing activities, and an appeal for £400,000 had been launched with a letter in the Times. On reading this letter, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, patron of the college, had immediately sent a donation. The college already had its treasures ; and additions to the library with its rare books would be welcome. But the department that most required new accommodation was the pathological museum, which he hoped would become the foremost of its kind throughout the world. In its new building the college should be able to offer its Commonwealth visitors those essentials that go with the feeling of being at home. In proposing The Guests, Mr. A. C. H. BELL managed to suggest that doctors are not interested in money ; but this reminded Sir RONALD WEEKS of the notice often seen in chemists’ shops " We dispense with accuracy." As president of the appeal committee, Sir Ronald expressed his admiration for the way the college had already helped itself. Also responding, Sir RUSSELL BRAIN, P.R.C.P., epitomised the controversy of twenty-five years ago in Macaulay’s words, " But those behind cried ’Forward ! ’ and those before criedback "-a state of affairs, he said, not unknown in your branch of the profession." But the faith of the pioneers had been justified, and their achievement was one in which the whole of Medicine, not only in this country but in the Commonwealth and in the world beyond, was proud. During these proceedings the President accepted from Sir WILLiAM FLETCHER SHAW a copy of his Twenty-five I’Mrs, and from Prof. J. M. MuNRO KERR a copy of the Historical Review of British Obstetrics and Gyncecology, 1800-1950, which he has edited jointly with Prof. R. W. Johnstone and Prof. Miles H. Phillips. The latter is "

described

as

jubilee by

a

"

a birthday gift to the college on its silver group of senior fellows," and the publishers, Olessrs. E. & S. Livingstone, are presenting to the college all profits on its sale. Sir William Fletcher Shaw and Prof. Munro Kerr are the two surviving signatories of the original articles of association. In his William Meredith Fletcher Shaw memorial lecture, which will appear in the August issue of the

1. See

Lancet, July 10, 1954, p. 74.

(2) To prevent the divorce of obstetrics from gynaecology (3) To bind the teachers of obstetrics and gynaecology together so that they could demand adequate facilities for the teaching and examining of students. (4) To act as the representative body of all obstetricians and gynsecologists. "I hope I have shown," he said in conclusion, " how far, how unbelievably far, these objectives have been in this short period of twenty-five years but there is still, he added, much to be done. The building appeal states that negotiations are now well advanced for a site of about 1 acres (Sussex Lodge, Regent’s Park, London) and plans for the proposed new college have been prepared by Messrs. Louis de Soissons, Partners. The drawing here reproduced shows R.A., & the building as it will appear from the Park. It comprises, from the left, the library, the assembly hall, and the main block with accommodation for general administration and members’ common-rooms. The museum and rooms for research will occupy the whole of the top floor. The cost of the building is estimated at 250,000, and a further 150,000 is required as a minimum reserve and endowment for maintenance. Contributions should be sent to the hon. treasurer, Royal College of Obstetrician and Gynaecologists, 58, Queen Anne Street, London, W.I.

won

PROGRESS IN ELECTRON MICROSCOPY IT is only just over twenty years since news of the first electron microscopes stimulated the imagination of biologists. Much has happened since then, and the exhibition held in London on July 15-21, in connection with the International Congress of Electron Microscopy, provided a useful opportunity for assessing progress. Several well-known models-notably those from the U.S.A.-were absent, but six different instruments were exhibited by Metropolitan Vickers, Philips, and Siemens. Each firm showed two main models, one operating at up to 100 kV, the other at 40-75 kV with lower resolving power. This tendency to produce a luxury and a poorman’s model is interesting ; but possibly it might be better to concentrate on producing one really good instrument at a reasonable price. The trouble is that