SOCIAL FUNCTIONS.

1270

greater distress to the parents, the ill-effects of elaborate efforts to foil and restrain, are even more apparent. The worst case of masturbation that I know of was cured by the accident that he For developed an acute appendicular abscess. six weeks he was very ill with general peritonitis. All thoughts of the inveterate habit were absent from his mind and from the minds of those in contact with him as he fought for his life. All attention, his own and other people’s, was concentrated on the daily dressing. If in infantile masturbation preventive apparatus must be used, and there are a few cases in which it is difficult to avoid its use, I think that no expenditure of trouble is too great to prevent the child appreciating the purpose for which the restraint is employed. The child may think that it is worn to make the legs or the back straight, but let its real purpose be hidden. Otherwise the use of the apparatus rivets the attention upon the habit so that its ultimate removal carries with it almost the certainty of relapse. Of masturbation in older children, I am not, of course, at the moment speaking. These few examples I take to illustrate my contention that in the nursery and in nursery management there is a wide field for the practice of an elementary form of psychotherapy. It is clear that it is through the mother and by means of her alone that we can control the disturbance in the child. We need not offend her by any appearance of fault-finding. Disturbances such as we are considering do not commonly occur in the child of a woman who is not an ardent mother. It is easy to show her that in a hundred and one ways she has done nothing but good to her child. In this one point, inhibited by the urgency of her fears and anxieties, she has perhaps failed. If her understanding is convinced and her cooperation secured all will be well. She is possessed of powers ov er her child incomparably greater than another She has proved that by the profundity can exercise. of the disturbance provoked in the child. It is a question only how this great power can be utilised for good and not for ill. even

and Disease, and spoke wisely on the possibility that the medical profession should become more an educational body, as a result of the public appreciation that psychological culture had claims equal to those He pointed out that to-day of physical culture. human progress had outstripped human adaptation, and drew a striking, almost biting, portrait of the leader of commerce attempting to obtain a few hours

leisure, heading to

a breakdown, while disguising his anxieties under the name of pleasure. He believed, he said, that society was adapting itself to the new conditions, but more consideration should be given to the mental and physical make-up of the individual, and he hoped that now that doctors, in directing the health of the community, were devoting attention to prevention as well as to remedy, that the selection of the proper career of young people would come more under medical guidance.

SOCIAL FUNCTIONS. HONORARY MEMBERSHIPS. The President of the Inter-State Post-Graduate Assembly of America, Dr. Charles H. Mayo, during the week of their visit to London, conferred the Honorary Membership of the Assembly upon H.R.H. the Duke of York ; H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught ; Rt. Hon. Austen Chamberlain, Minister of Foreign Affairs ; Rt. Hon. Neville Chamberlain, Minister of Health ; Lord Dawson of Penn ; Lord Desborough, Chairman of the Pilgrims’ Society ; Sir Humphry Rolleston, Bt. ; Sir John Bland-Sutton, Bt. ; Sir William Arbuthnot Lane, Bt. ; Sir StClair Thomson, Sir William Hale - White, Sir Holburt J. Waring, Sir John Y. W. MacAlister, Sir George Newman, Mr. W. Girling Ball, and Mr. Philip Franklin.

THE GUILDHALL BANQUET. More than 600 sat down on Friday evening at the Guildhall banquet given by the Assembly, to which a number of distinguished visitors had been invited. Dr. Charles Mayo took the chair and proposed the health of. H.M. the King and the President of the United States, both of which were drunk with Mr. Neville Chamberlain, the Among other short introductory lectures on musical honours. Wednesday, June 3rd, and Thursday, the 4th, Minister of Health, proposed the Inter-State Postthere should be mentioned an address by Mr. T. P. Graduate Assembly, his theme being the general DUNHILL on Auricular Fibrillation in Exophthalmic practitioner as educator. Dr. Mayo, in responding, Goitre ; one upon the Heart in Influenza by Dr. said that where thegeneral practitioner did his STRICKLAND GOODALL, who spoke of his conviction duty, medicine would stand high in that community. that the aetiology of heart disease in this country was He envied England its Ministry of Health and its changing the almost universal attribution to rheu- Board of Education, each with a Secretary of State matism disappearing; and one by Dr. GORDON of its own. (These speeches have been made the HOL"’B1ES on Suprarenal Disease. subject of a leading article.) The British Medical Sir WALTER FLETCHER, in an address on Medical Profession was proposed by Dr. Hugh Cabot and Dr. Hutchinson, to which Lord Dawson of Penn Research in Great Britain, pointed out how often The last toast was that of the Englishour fine research work had been impeded by lack of Nations, speaking proposed by Sir W. Arbuthnot money, quoting the facts that Newton and Faraday had been endowed by official positions, while Lane and Sir StClair Thomson, to which Dr. Franklin Darwin’s personal wealth permitted him to carry on Martin, Director of the American College of Surgeons, his work independently. He named as the four responded. At the conclusion of the banquet Dr. the honorary membership of the conspicuous statesmen who had contributed to the Mayo conferred on Mr. Neville Chamberlain. Assembly of scientific who progress knowledge Henry VIII., DINNER TO DR. MAYO. founded the Royal College of Physicians of London, and from whom the chairs of medicine at Oxford A complimentary dinner to Dr. Charles Mayo and Cambridge gained the title of Regius ; Charles II., was given by the Section of Surgery of the Royal who founded the Royal Society ; the Prince Consort, Society of Medicine on June 6th at the Hotel Cecil, whose influence on the status of scientific institutions London. Mr. Herbert Paterson, President of the and scientific men had been far-reaching ; and Mr. Section, presided, and there were present, among Lloyd George, who founded the Development Com- others, Dr. and Mrs. Franklin Martin, Sir StClair mission, the Medical Research Council, and the Thomson, the Rt. Hon. T. P. O’Connor, M.P., Sir Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. William and Lady Arbuthnot Lane, Sir Anthony Sir Walter Fletcher briefly explained the constitution Bowlby, Sir William MacPherson, Sir D’Arcy Power, and composition of the Medical Research Council, Sir George Blacker, Dr. and Mrs. Hugh Cabot, and concluded by a happy reference to the linking up Dr. Woods Hutchinson, Sir James and Lady of the scientific work of Great Britain with that of Berry, Mr. Cyril Nitch, Mr. and Mrs. H. S. America, a fine example of this being the sums of Souttar, and Mr. Swinford Edwards. Mr. Paterson, money which the Rockefeller Foundation had spent in proposing the health of their guest, reminded them in this country. that Dr. Mayo was the son of an Englishman, as The last of these addresses was delivered by Lord his father was born at Eccles, near Manchester. The DAWSON, who took as his subject the Speed of Life success of the Mayo Clinic, he said, was due to the

Woods

responded.

1271 combination of high professional skill, consideration of Victoria, London, in honour of the medical visitors the best interests of the patient, and fully organised from the United States and Canada. The health of business methods. He referred to the versatility and the American doctors was happily proposed by Mr. modest lovable disposition of their guest, and empha- Austen Chamberlain, who disclaimed any connexion sised the value of clinical congresses in cementing with a liberal profession, while acknowledging a the bonds of friendship and good-fellowship between profound debt to his professional advisers. He had, the great English-speaking peoples. Since the visit of our American friends in 1910 we were, he said, gradually becoming used to these friendly invasions, and he hoped that they would be continued. Dr. Charles Mayo, in his reply, paid a tribute to the work of his brother, Dr. William Mayo, and thanked the members of the Section of Surgery for their warm reception. Mr. J. C. C. Davidson, M.P., proposed "America and American Surgery," and Dr. Franklin The toast of " The Chairman," Martin replied. Sir James by Berry, brought the proproposed ceedings to an end.

thought, adopted a sufficient share of sibility in matters of importance, so that it

he

responwas an

immense satisfaction to him to feel that his health business of his while he entrusted it to his medical adviser. In an eloquent conclusion, describing the progress made in the last generation in th& study of tropical diseases, he coupled the name of Dr. Charles Mayo with the toast. Dr. Mayo, in acknowledging the happy feeling which had been engendered by the Royal welcome which had been extended to the Assembly in London, said that men from across the Atlantic had the same ideas as thos& that were found in the greatest city in the world, RECEPTION BY THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS OF for they were of the same stock-a personal matter ENGLAND. to himself whose family for 200 years had been In the afternoon of Friday, June 5th, the buried in a Manchester churchyard and whose President and Council held a reception in honour of father walked a London hospital before deciding to. the American delegates and their friends in the make his way in America. Dr. Mayo then addressed Museum of the College, when Sir John Bland-Sutton, the Duke of Connaught, Mr. Chamberlain, and Lord the President, delivered an entertaining half-hour Desborough, the Chairman of the Pilgrims, and address on the intriguing subject of the Psychology declared them honorary members of the Inter-Stateof Animals Swallowed Alive. His text occurred to Assembly. him, he said, one evening after dinner, in the thought LUNCHEON TO DR. MAYO. whether animals which swallowed their prey alive At an informal luncheon earlier on the same day, endured discomfort from the efforts of the prey to get out again. With regard to the story of Jonah presided over by Mr. A. Webb-Johnson at the in the whale, he had once thought a parallel of that Middlesex Hospital, the connexion of Dr. Mayo withincident could not be found in modern times, but London, and especially with Middlesex Hospital, he since discovered in the Boston Post Boy for 1771 was brought prominently to notice, for at the luncheon account, vouched for by eye-witnesses, of a sailor there was exhibited to Dr. Mayo the portrait of his an in a small whaling ship who had been taken into great uncle, who was a surgeon to the Middlesex a whale’s mouth; and had been eventually vomited Hospital 100 years ago, and was one of the founders. up— rather sick and dizzy, but alive." The lecturer of the medical school there. then went on to describe the habits of a prickly A number of American doctors and friends attended’ fish with two powerful teeth used for crunching a garden party in the square of St. Bartholomew’s coral. This fish was often swallowed by sharks, Hospital on Thursday afternoon, when the Great Hall, and when swallowed was able to blow itself out to Hospital Dispensary, and the Medical College buildings the size of a football, thus causing its host con- were on view, and Sir D’Arcy Power gave a short siderable discomfort-and worse, for with its power- address on the antiquities of the hospital and itsful teeth it would gnaw its way right out through neighbourhood. " What terrible agony," said the shark’s side. " The medical staff of the Central London Throat,.,. the lecturer, but what a just revenge ! " and Ear Hospital entertained a party of 40 to Nose, Another fish whose living meal often revenged at the Carlton Hotel on Tuesday in connexion itself was the " black swallower," the Chiasmodon. luncheon with the visit of the Inter-State Post-Graduate Its stomach was so distensible that it could swallow Putrefaction of too Assembly of America, followed by a demonstration of a fish much larger than itself. special cases, operations, and lectures by members of’ ample a meal sometimes preceded digestion, with the the staff at the hospital. result that the gas-distended stomach brought the where it deep water Chiasmodon to the surface, Sir John Bland-Sutton then could not live. described several other instances of living meals, THE BATEMAN APPEAL. among fishes and snakes-of pike swallowing pike, of dogs consuming whole Alaskan frozen fish which ’, As already explained in THE 1-ANCET, it has been. were in ventro revived to activity, and finally of the adventures of a pet tree frog of his own. One story felt that material assistance ought to be offered towas of a snake which had swallowed a frog alive. Dr. Bateman to meet the legal expenses cf his sucThe snake’s owner laid the animal on a table to watch appeal and to make good the deficiency in his developments. Someone accidentally tapped the professional income. Accordingly the Bateman Fund table, whereupon the snake jumped off and the has been opened and lists of contributions haveinterned frog was heard to squeak. At this the appeared in recent issues. We have received. snake opened its jaws and ejected its meal, which, additional contributions as follows ,&bgr; s. d. covered with slime, hopped away into safety. The Already received and acknowledged 465 18 0 lecture was greatly enjoyed by the guests, who 5 50 A Grateful Patient ........ recorded their appreciation in a very adequate 1 00 Anonymous was no

I I

cessful

Dr.O’Sullivan Miles

banner. A pleasant programme of music was discoursed

"

.........

throughout

the remainder of the afternoon. The opportunity of inspecting the College Museum and library, where many interesting old prints and portraits were on view and where a micro-

........

"

0 1 0 0 10 6

473 13

6

guests had the

scopical demonstration

was

staged.

DINNER WITH THE PILGRIMS. The Duke of Connaught, as President of the Society, took the chair on Thursday evening, June 4th, at a dinner given by the Pilgrims at the Hotel

Remittances should be forwarded to the Managerof THE LANCET, 423, Strand, W.C. 2, and madepayable to the " Bateman Fund Account."

PRESTON

ROYAL INFIRMARY.-This hospital of enlarged by a new wing containing 72 beds,. an additional operating theatre, and a laboratory, at a cost £ £ 30,000. 200 beds is to be

of

’