SAINT PATRICK.

1392 fall forward. The French system fully recognises related to St. Martin, the celebrated Bishop of Tours. that the most rapid possible action and the greatest delicacy According to Usher, Ware, Colgan, and other authorities, of movement is insured when opposing groups of muscles Patrick was born either in the year 372 or 373, and died on and the part on which March 17th, 493, in the 120th year of his age. Lanigan, are simultaneously in action or arm, trunk, act, hand, they leg, is midway between the however, places his death in the year 465. In the great and successful introduction of Christianity positions that can be brought about by their extreme contraction. Further-and this seems a point of the greatest into Ireland two characters stand out prominently in viewimportance-this mid-position is one of comparative rest. namely, St. Patrick and Niall, the monarch of Ireland. TheThe same considerations, though in a minor degree, apply circumstance which so intimately connects Niall with Patrick also to the exaggerated’’feather-edge " attitude prescribed is that it was Niall who took Patrick into Ireland. Niall was in the Italian system. If in sword exercise rapidity and a famous warrior and made numerous military expeditions into delicacy of movement, combined with good balance and neighbouring countries. In one of these expeditions into adequate power of cut or thrust, are desirable, it is to be Gaul he made many captives, among whom was a youth regretted that a system based on sound scientific principles who ultimately became the celebrated St. Patrick. The should be replaced by one that possesses no such advantages. young man was sold as a slave to a chief named Milchuo, T :1m. Sirs. vonra faithfully who possessed a district in that part of Dalaradia now the southern part of the county of Antrim, where he tended theC. T. DENT. Nov. 27th, 1895. flocks of his master beside Slieve Mis mountain. Patrick, after a captivity of seven years, effected his escape and re-turned to his family in Gaul. Subsequently to this he studied "CONSIDERATIONS IN RESPECT TO several years in the monastery of St. Martin’s at Tours and ’RETURN’ CASES OF SCARLET also under St. German at Auxerre, and became eminent for FEVER." his great piety. In the year 432 Patrick was consecrated a To the Editors of THE LANCET. bishop and appointed to be the successor to Palladius on theSIRS,-I have read with much interest Mr. T. W. Thompson’s Irish mission. Palladius, it appears, was not quite a year in been compelled to quit the country in A.D. 431, very able paper in THE LANCET of Nov. 23rd on so-called Ireland, having "return"cases of scarlet fever. In all probability it wiU the year of his arrival. Patrick landed in Ireland in the year 432, and on Easter have the effect of drawing the attention of our metropolitan medical officers of health to the subject, and as the result Sunday in the following year he preached the Gospel before we shall have all cases of such nature carefully noted and the monarch Laoghaire, son of Niall, and a large assembly Druids, and people at the royal residence at. reported. During the time I was assistant medical officer at of chiefs, the Stockwell Fever Asylum-a period extending over five I Tara, and on Easter Monday he also preached before had an opportunity of observing these so-called many distinguished chiefs at Tailten, another royal reyears-I " From Tara Patrick journeyed from place to, return " cases, and came to the conclusion that with every sidence. in the execution of his mission, which extended place on the care part of the fever hospital and sanitary authorities such cases would from time to time appear. over many years. He converted to the Christian faith With regard to the very important question-What is nearly the whole of the people of Ireland, consecrated the explanation of these " return" cases ?-when we consider more than 300 bishops, with a great number of presbyters, the tenacity of the poison, the existence at times of recur- founded many hundred churches, and having served the rent desquamation, and that the patient may come from the Christian Church-of which he was a shining light-well and fever hospital ward to his own home, it is hardly surprising faithfully he died full of days at Saul, near Downpatrick. St. Patrick was a man of small stature, but of immense we should have some "return" cases. I agree with Mr. Thompson that the throat is in all probability a factor in the propaenergy and activity of mind and body. In all his intergation of the disease ; often the chief stress of the malady course with the Irish people he was affable, agreeable, and’ is located there, and I think the importance of the spray polite, and to the Irish princes he invariably paid the greatest and antiseptic gargles is sometimes overlooked. With deference and respect, on account of their learning, theirreference to the desquamating cuticle being a powerful many virtues, and their manly and lofty bearing. St. Patrick the more general study of the Latin lan-agent in its diffusion, Dr. Priestley’s cases would not gave a instimulus tobut the educated Irish had a good knowIreland, The recurrent desquama- guage appear to support this view. tion may be counteracted by the daily warm antiseptic ledge of several languages as well as their own written bath, so often neglected by the parents on the return language centuries before the time of St. Patrick. Indeed, home of the patient. I incline to the opinion that some few nations made so much use and such good use of written. "return"cases may owe their origin not only to articles language as the ancient Irish. Although St. Patrick is of clothing or otherwise escaping the action of the home generally looked upon as the great Apostle of the Irish people, disinfection, but also in some instances to the chemical agent nevertheless the Gospel was preached in Ireland long beforeemployed, the action of chlorine appearing to be of a more the time of Palladius or of St. Patrick. The old Irish reliable nature than sulphur. The desirability of keeping a annalists record three remarkable persons who became conchild fresh from a fever hospital apart from healthy verts to Christianity before the missions of Palladius and.’ of Ulster in children, either by residence at a convalescent home or !, Patrick-namely, Concovar MacNeasa, the king the first century ; Moran, the famous judge or chief Brehon it when can be its own home carried would at out, ’ , separation be a wise precaution. The school influence also must not be of Ireland, in the beginning of the second century ; and the ’ renowned lost. sight nf T am. Sirs. yours truly Cormac, monarch of Ireland, who reigned in themiddle of the third century. SAMUEL LEE, M.D. St. And, St. Leonards, Nov. 25th, 1895. I am, Sirs, yours truly, WILLIAM O’NEILL, M.D., M.R.C.P. Lond. Lincoln, Nov. 25th, 1895.

lunger to

I

SAINT PATRICK. To the Editors of THE LANCET.

"A CASE OF DOUBLE PHLEGMASIA ALBA DOLENS IN A YOUNG VIRGIN" SIES,-In the review of the " Dictionary of National Biography"in THE LANCET of last week, it is stated that To the Editors of THE LANCET. " Patrick, the famous patron saint of Ireland, was born in Scotland in the year 373, his father being a magistrate in have SIRS,—I just seen a recent note in THE LANCET Dumbarton, which was at that time a Roman fortress held of Oct. 5th from Dr. Herman on an interesting case of white by a Roman garrison." I should like, with your permission, swelling of both legs in a young anæmic girl, the anæmia to say that many Welshmen affirm that the saint was born being the only apparent accompaniment and cause of the in Wales, but most Irishmen believe that the place of phlegmasia. In 1891 Icame in charge of a case which was Patrick’s nativity was neither in Scotland nor in Wales, but almost literally identical in every clinical detail with that in Armoric Gaul. This is the opinion of the learned Lanigan described by Dr. Herman, the only material difference being

and of other Celtic or Irish historians of authority, who narrate that Patrick was born at Bononia, now Boulogne, part of the territory of ancient Armorica. Patrick’s parents were respectable Roman citizens of Gaul. His father’s name was Calphurnius, and his mother (Conchessa) was nearly

that the disease was confined to the right leg, though I remember now that I often felt doubtful whether the cedema found in the left ankle was not something more than that usual in severe anæmia, but then double phlegmasia.

alba in

an

unmarried

girl aged

sixteen seemed quite