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SCOTTISH STANDING ADVISORY COMMITTEES
407
SCOTTISH STANDING ADVISORY COMMITTEES
Secretary of State for Scotland has appointed members to the standing advisory committees to hold office till Dec. 31, 1956, in place of those who retired at the end of last year, and has reappointed other members whose terms of office have expired. Medical members have been appointed or reappointed as follows : THE
simple life of the countryside. There you will find the strength of England, slow, conservative and steadfast ; there you will find the continuity of history, true values, and perhaps some peace of mind. *
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I think that the first disturbance to your peace .of mind and bodily function will be your little well. I do not share your simple faith that the water will be safe unless you foul it yourself. You will certainly do the latter, perhaps unwittingly, and "the odds are strongly Dental Advisory Committee.-Dr. J. Crawford Shiach (Elgin), in favour of Nature doing it for you whether you like reappointed. it or not. Pharmaceutical Advisory Comrnittee.-Dr. William Gibson From your description of the hand pump I suspect (Old Kilpatrick), appointed until Dec. 31, 1954. Advisory Committee on Local Authority Services.-Dr. May that it is probably a shallow well. You will hear all Baird (Aberdeen), Dr. Nora Wattie (Glasgow), reappointed. sorts of tales from the local folk about its prodigious Advisory Committee on General Practitioner Services.- depth or amazing shallowness, how it taps water which Dr. J. Kelman (Perth), reappointed. has never seen the light of day, how you have to go Advisory Committee on Health Services in the Highlands and easy in summer and not waste water on cooling the Islands.-Dr. J. R. Anderson (Fortrose), Mr. I. McClure (Kirkmilk, how you have to let the sediment settle in the A. C. Dr. J. wall), reappointed ; Guy (Oban), appointed. jug after rain. Even the local handyman will talk in terms of linear measurement of its depth. If you can cast your mind back a couple of generations The Widdicombe File you will remember that the purist conception of a shallow well (however deep) is one that does not reach VIII. DOWN ON THE FARM the first impervious stratum, and that a deep well NY DEAR WHIDDON, (however shallow) taps water below impervious strata. I’ve been meaning to write to you ever since Dec. 19 That conception is generally quite incomprehensible to when your letter to old Peter caught my eye while I was countryfolk and is dismissed as a contradiction in terms ; the for hen food to come to the but but you will see the point no doubt. I would be prepared boil ; waiting up here tomorrow is as good as today and we like to think to wager that your little well is filled with subsoil drainthat the day after may be even better. age, which is a discreet euphemism for seepage from The bits of your letter which really intrigued me were the middenstead, washings from the byre, and scourings from the land uphill. That is what happens in most of your plans for insanitary retirement to your farm in Devonshire. It seems a long time now since we used to the farmyard wells all over Britain. work together in that brittle world of stiff collars and It would be even more disturbing to your peace of clean motor-cars, and I remember how you shook your mind to have the water analysed, unless you choose head sadly when I deserted your side to meander down to introduce the customary element of bias. Later on the byways of preventive medicine in rural England. But you will, of course, have to learn how to manipulate now that I see you following your country lane towards samples for specific purposes, such as proving their our world of tweeds and muddy jeeps, I hasten for old undoubted purity in order to get a T.T. licence for your You must be particularly cautious, however, time’s sake to offer you a helping hand over some of milk. the stiles. if your farm has been producing ordinary milk for Before we rush into the practical details, I would just years, cooling it as the pump and the fancy of the like to say that you can look forward to the friendly moment dictated ; because if it dawns on the staff of the " Ag and Fish " that your well is polluted they welcome of the countryside in your pilgrimage. You see, medicine and agriculture have some strange affinity ; will stop you producing milk at all, and that is a serious perhaps it is because they both spring from the same matter when it comes to the monthly cheques. Far better let sleeping dogs lie and go on selling any old elemental roots. Maybe the keys to many of the unsolved be found in that and of will vast almost milk for someone in the towns to try to pasteurise problems aetiology land human and no-man’s which lies between than to be forced to change over to stock-rearing or unexplored veterinary medicine. One day you must come over and beef cattle, all for the sake of a few pence a gallon bonus in the T.T. game. As long as you are not too heavy-handed have a chat about some of the queer cases of meningitis, the odd abortive so-called polios, the hint of stranger you can dilute the churns with as much well water as neurotropic viruses, the shadow of carcinogens in the you can get away with. There will be other times when it may be expedient to soil, the Weil’s disease which is not Weil’s, the vagaries of trace elements, the little queries which lurk behind display a true picture of the well, or even exaggerate some of the death certificates of those who have lived its lethal potentialities. Provided that you keep one very near the earth-queries which may not be solved eye on the weather, and the other on judicious use of the until the laboratory too comes to live nearer the earth. plug in the middenstead sump, you can almost disregard But I had forgotten for the moment that you have the guesswork opinions which analysts presume to append planned your programme for retirement in gradual stages to their factual findings. Luckily they are too comfortso that the clinical problems of the countryside can ably esconsced in their ivory towers to worry about wait until the day when you begin to wonder whether it reality. Perhaps they have become disheartened by the is worth all the bother of trailing up to Town each week. postal-diagnosis demands of the lazy ; and really they That will be a landmark, not of your dotage, but of must feel rather flattered at the respect which is lavished on their ex-cathedra dicta. For all honest and practical your salvation ; for retirement is the hand of death only to those who have no interests beyond their daily purposes I should simply assume that your little well work. Forgive me if I seem to preach, but we are at the! provides the usual 360-plus coli per millilitre, and faecal receiving end of what my youngsters irreverently call coli withal. the geriatric trek, and we often watch how many a weary The local folk will tell you that your well yields the clinician turns for relaxation to the peace of the fieldsI best water for miles around, and that the last tenant of and the sky. For most of them it is a pipe-dream, andL your farm, who lived there 90 years, attributed his good you must count yourself fortunate that the materiall health to the ancient pump. They will mention also that summer visitors from Town always started diarrhoea rewards of your labours will enable you to enter the; .
SCOTTISH STANDING ADVISORY COMMITTEES
Secretary of State for Scotland has appointed members to the standing advisory committees to hold office till Dec. 31, 1956, in place of those who retired at the end of last year, and has reappointed other members whose terms of office have expired. Medical members have been appointed or reappointed as follows : THE
simple life of the countryside. There you will find the strength of England, slow, conservative and steadfast ; there you will find the continuity of history, true values, and perhaps some peace of mind. *
new
*
*
I think that the first disturbance to your peace .of mind and bodily function will be your little well. I do not share your simple faith that the water will be safe unless you foul it yourself. You will certainly do the latter, perhaps unwittingly, and "the odds are strongly Dental Advisory Committee.-Dr. J. Crawford Shiach (Elgin), in favour of Nature doing it for you whether you like reappointed. it or not. Pharmaceutical Advisory Comrnittee.-Dr. William Gibson From your description of the hand pump I suspect (Old Kilpatrick), appointed until Dec. 31, 1954. Advisory Committee on Local Authority Services.-Dr. May that it is probably a shallow well. You will hear all Baird (Aberdeen), Dr. Nora Wattie (Glasgow), reappointed. sorts of tales from the local folk about its prodigious Advisory Committee on General Practitioner Services.- depth or amazing shallowness, how it taps water which Dr. J. Kelman (Perth), reappointed. has never seen the light of day, how you have to go Advisory Committee on Health Services in the Highlands and easy in summer and not waste water on cooling the Islands.-Dr. J. R. Anderson (Fortrose), Mr. I. McClure (Kirkmilk, how you have to let the sediment settle in the A. C. Dr. J. wall), reappointed ; Guy (Oban), appointed. jug after rain. Even the local handyman will talk in terms of linear measurement of its depth. If you can cast your mind back a couple of generations The Widdicombe File you will remember that the purist conception of a shallow well (however deep) is one that does not reach VIII. DOWN ON THE FARM the first impervious stratum, and that a deep well NY DEAR WHIDDON, (however shallow) taps water below impervious strata. I’ve been meaning to write to you ever since Dec. 19 That conception is generally quite incomprehensible to when your letter to old Peter caught my eye while I was countryfolk and is dismissed as a contradiction in terms ; the for hen food to come to the but but you will see the point no doubt. I would be prepared boil ; waiting up here tomorrow is as good as today and we like to think to wager that your little well is filled with subsoil drainthat the day after may be even better. age, which is a discreet euphemism for seepage from The bits of your letter which really intrigued me were the middenstead, washings from the byre, and scourings from the land uphill. That is what happens in most of your plans for insanitary retirement to your farm in Devonshire. It seems a long time now since we used to the farmyard wells all over Britain. work together in that brittle world of stiff collars and It would be even more disturbing to your peace of clean motor-cars, and I remember how you shook your mind to have the water analysed, unless you choose head sadly when I deserted your side to meander down to introduce the customary element of bias. Later on the byways of preventive medicine in rural England. But you will, of course, have to learn how to manipulate now that I see you following your country lane towards samples for specific purposes, such as proving their our world of tweeds and muddy jeeps, I hasten for old undoubted purity in order to get a T.T. licence for your You must be particularly cautious, however, time’s sake to offer you a helping hand over some of milk. the stiles. if your farm has been producing ordinary milk for Before we rush into the practical details, I would just years, cooling it as the pump and the fancy of the like to say that you can look forward to the friendly moment dictated ; because if it dawns on the staff of the " Ag and Fish " that your well is polluted they welcome of the countryside in your pilgrimage. You see, medicine and agriculture have some strange affinity ; will stop you producing milk at all, and that is a serious perhaps it is because they both spring from the same matter when it comes to the monthly cheques. Far better let sleeping dogs lie and go on selling any old elemental roots. Maybe the keys to many of the unsolved be found in that and of will vast almost milk for someone in the towns to try to pasteurise problems aetiology land human and no-man’s which lies between than to be forced to change over to stock-rearing or unexplored veterinary medicine. One day you must come over and beef cattle, all for the sake of a few pence a gallon bonus in the T.T. game. As long as you are not too heavy-handed have a chat about some of the queer cases of meningitis, the odd abortive so-called polios, the hint of stranger you can dilute the churns with as much well water as neurotropic viruses, the shadow of carcinogens in the you can get away with. There will be other times when it may be expedient to soil, the Weil’s disease which is not Weil’s, the vagaries of trace elements, the little queries which lurk behind display a true picture of the well, or even exaggerate some of the death certificates of those who have lived its lethal potentialities. Provided that you keep one very near the earth-queries which may not be solved eye on the weather, and the other on judicious use of the until the laboratory too comes to live nearer the earth. plug in the middenstead sump, you can almost disregard But I had forgotten for the moment that you have the guesswork opinions which analysts presume to append planned your programme for retirement in gradual stages to their factual findings. Luckily they are too comfortso that the clinical problems of the countryside can ably esconsced in their ivory towers to worry about wait until the day when you begin to wonder whether it reality. Perhaps they have become disheartened by the is worth all the bother of trailing up to Town each week. postal-diagnosis demands of the lazy ; and really they That will be a landmark, not of your dotage, but of must feel rather flattered at the respect which is lavished on their ex-cathedra dicta. For all honest and practical your salvation ; for retirement is the hand of death only to those who have no interests beyond their daily purposes I should simply assume that your little well work. Forgive me if I seem to preach, but we are at the! provides the usual 360-plus coli per millilitre, and faecal receiving end of what my youngsters irreverently call coli withal. the geriatric trek, and we often watch how many a weary The local folk will tell you that your well yields the clinician turns for relaxation to the peace of the fieldsI best water for miles around, and that the last tenant of and the sky. For most of them it is a pipe-dream, andL your farm, who lived there 90 years, attributed his good you must count yourself fortunate that the materiall health to the ancient pump. They will mention also that summer visitors from Town always started diarrhoea rewards of your labours will enable you to enter the; .