THE ARMY MEDICAL SCHOOL, NETLEY.

397 authorise or require companies to abstract from the Thames or its tributaries an additional amount of water should occasion require. The LocalGovernment Board are to have power to require any company to increase their pumping power and to enforce orders and regulations The to ensure the carrying out of these provisions. Board are also to have power to attach penalties for the omission of such orders and regulations, to recover them in a summary manner, and to apply them in any way they may direct. The metropolitan companies are to have power to .acquire (land and easements for carrying out the provisions of the Act. An arbitrator is to be appointed within three months of the passing of the Act by the companies or, should they fail to agree, by the Local Government Board. The arbitrator so appointed is to hold his office for some period not greater than three years. His remuneration is to be .settled by the water companies or, should they fail to agree, by the Local Government Board and he is to be paid buy the water companies or some of them as they may agree in such proportion as the companies may from time to time agree upon or, should they not agree, as the arbitrator himself may appoint. An important clause relates to the retrospective action of the Act. It is provided under Section 13 that13. Anything done by any one or more of the metropolitan water .companies before the passing of this Act which would have been valid and within their respective powers if this Act had been passed in the .session of Parliament holden in the year one thousand eight hundred and ninety-eight and the expenditure of money by such company or - companies in reference thereto is hereby sanctioned and confirmed. The companies are to be allowed to raise money on debenture for the ;purposes of carrying out the Act. New debenture stocks are to be offered by auction or tender; the ,purchase-money of the capital sold by auction is to be paid within three months. Notice is to be given to certain omcials as to the sale of the shares. The officials to be notified are the clerk of the London County Council, the town clerk of the City of London, the secretary of the London Stock Exchange, and the clerks of the various I county councils who might be affected, and in the case of the East London Company the clerk of the Borough of West Ham. The stock which is not sold by auction or tender is to be offered to shareholders. Should there be a premium arising from the stock it is to be applied for the purposes of the Act. The amount of stock is limited to .f?600,OOO. Certain provisions are made between the companies as to the payment of interest of debenture stock.

THE ARMY MEDICAL

SCHOOL, NETLEY.

THE winter session of 1898-99 was brought to a close on Jan. 31st, when the results of the recent examination were announced and the prizes were distributed by Sir Ralph Knox, K.C.B., Permanent Under-Secretary of State for War, in the presence of Surgeon-General Jameson, C.B., DirectorGeneral, A.M.S., Lieutenant-General Sir Baker Russell, K.C.B., commanding the Southern District, Surgeon-General Cuffe, C.B., P.M.O. of Portsmouth, the military staff of the Royal Victoria Hospital, Netley, and a distinguished company of visitors. Colonel NOTTER, Professor of Hygiene, announced the results, reporting that the work of the session had been satisfactory, that the whole of the 50 surgeons on probation who had undergone the final examination had proved themselves fitted to receive Her Majesty’s commission, that in general ability they were of fair average, and that their conduct while passing through the school had been excellent. The subjoined lists show the final positions of the officers with the marks which they obtained at the examinations and the prizes gained at the Army Medical School.

MEDICAL QUALIFICATIONS IN FRANCE AND THE POSITION OF THE ALIEN MEDICAL MAN. IN our issue of Dec. 10th, 1898, we published a communication from our Paris correspondent upon the above important subject. In this our correspondent was made to does not authorise the say : "The diplôme d’Universit6 holder to practise outside France herself....... Foreigners who wished to practise in France were allowed to do so as before under easy conditions, but they were only to receive the dipl6me d’Universit6." This statement of course implied that foreigners could practise in France with the dipl6me d’Universit6. This, however, is not correct and we regret that owing to an error, and one which in justice to our Paris correspondent we wish to say was in no way due to him, the statement should have appeared in our columns. Our attention was called to the matter by a correspondent and we submitted his statement to our Paris correspondent who has sent us the following: ’’ The diploma d’Universit6 granted by the faculty of Paris gives no right to practise in France. The medical study for it is the same as for the other diploma, but greater facilities are granted to foreigners for obtaining it and studies already gone through in their own countries are allowed to count. The diplôme d’état alone gives the right to practise in France or her colonies and to obtain it the student before commencing his medical studies must undergo in France the examination for the baccalauréat (bachclier de l’enseignement secondaire elassiq2ce) and a preliminary examination in physics, chemistry, and natural science. No remission of the preliminary examination is granted to anyone, be he Frenchman or foreigner." ......

qj. 6. 1.

Sir RALPH KNOX after distributing the prizes and saying few words to each prize-winner, especially to Mr. Harvey who entered the Army Medical School by nomination and who, he said, by his diligence had shown that nomination had proved a success, addressed the young officers in a speech of which the following is an abstract. He said he feared that his selection for the performance of the function was not peculiarly happy, for though for many years he had known much about army medical officers he had to confess that most of his thoughts were directed to ascertaining how few of them would suffice for their work and what was the minimum remuneration which would induce them to join the service. He, however, could say that his interest in the service had been very great and that he had served on many committees dealing with important questions connected with their duties. Now, he had to give them a word of encouragement on starting on their career in life. He a

first congratulated them on at last having completed that terrible examination period of life through which it appeared that all young men nowadays had to pass and he was very pleased to hear that the standard of their work was so high and the general results so satisfactory, and he thought that they might look foiward with confidence to their lives as

398 members of the noblest and most continuously selfof all professions. They must have high ideals, for a member of their service was both surgeon and soldier too. The firing of guns and rifles imposed no specially arduous task on anyone. What called for the display of all the finest soldierly qualities was the performance of these duties under fire ; and it could not be said nowadays that anyone associated with the combatant army anywhere near the front was not within the zone of fire of the long range of the present field guns or that of the low-trajectory rifle. Doubtless there were men of various abilities in the class; some who had had good luck and some whose luck was bad, but with whatever ,ability they were equipped of the great now that they were becoming members social organism there were two qualities they should possess in order to secure success-namely, tact and courtesy-or in more homely phrase common-sense and good manners. Without these the best abilities often failed of success, and with them the deficient talent was often compensated. He would urge them to continue their reading not merely of technical works but of the best literature of their country; they should check in some way the narrowing influences of a special service. They should practise putting down their thoughts, whether technical as derived from their work or not, in writing. It was Bacon who said, " Reading maketh a full man, writing an exact man," and a medical officer in the army should be both ; and the third of the three R’s should not be neglected. It was most useful to cultivate arithmetical thought ; they had doubtless learned something about statistics. These could not be properly prepared by anyone who did not accurately perceive the limited sense in which a fact could be stated in figures, and as army statistics afforded the information on which many all-important decisions depended he urged the careful preparation of the returns which they would be called upon to render. He feared that the remarks he had made were somewhat trite, but they contained such advice as he would give to his own son, and the short intercourse he had had with the young officers, especially the very agreeable and joyous evening of the day before, had led him to regard them as special boys of his own, whose names he now possessed, whose careers in the future he would be always interested in. He congratulated them very sincerely and on behalf of all present offered them the heartiest good wishes for their future. The DIRECTOR-GENERAL, after thanking Sir Ralph Knox for his able speech and for his kindness in coming to Netley, remarked that the young officers of the Indian Medical Service were sure to find interesting work in India and opportunities of distinction, for plague, pestilence, famine, and war were one or all of them nearly always present in the country they were going to. He congratulated them on obtaining their commissions. Turning to the young officers of the Royal Army Medical Corps he said that they were entering the service with a fair wind and that this was so was due to the wise policy of Lord Lansdowne who had given them the warrant which they so highly valued and whose name would in the future be ranked with that of Lord Herbert of Lea as one of the greatest benefactors of the medical service of the army. Associated with Lord Lansdowne in drawing up the recent warrant had been Sir Ralph Knox and his predecessor, Lord Haliburton, in both of whom the medical officers of the army had found firm and excellent friends. The proceedings were brought to a termination by a few words addressed to the young officers by Surgeon-General NASH who wished them God-speed in their careers. The company was subsequently entertained at luncheon by Surgeon-General Nash and the officers of the Royal Army

Booth Bryan, the chairman of, ;and engineer to, the East. London Waterworks Company. Mr. BRYAN put in a statement as to their sources of supply and a brief description of the works of the company, a table giving a description of the engines and the capacity of the pumps at the various stations of the company, and a table showing the distribution of the capital expenditure of the company from the year 1880 to the year 1896. A description of the company’s works has already been fully given in THE LANCET.1 Mr. Bryan gives in a footnote to his. tables some information as to the time during which pipes last. Mains have been dug up and found to be in a perfectly good condition after having been in the earth for upwards of 60 years. The chief accidents which occur to pipes are those produced by the effects of frost and it is found also that in some districts in which the ground has been artificially made up the mains have been injuriously affected by the local conditions. Apart from such accidents no period can be assigned as the proper "life of a main." Colonel Locziwoov was cross-examined by Mr. BAi.FOUB BROWNE on behalf of the London County Council. Mr. Balfour Browne pointed out that Mr. Charles Greaves (a former engineer to the East London Company), in giving evidence on a Bill which was before Parliament in the yea. 1867, said that in the year 1864 they had found that the supply of water from the Lee was barely sufficient for their requirements. In that year there was "the greatest drought within the memory of any one." The company resolved to. make application to Parliament for powers to take a supply from the Thames and to increase their storage capacity at Waltbamstow. In 1867 before the Royal Commissioners on the. Water-supply Mr. Greaves gave evidence to the effect that he thought that the company ought not to be entirely dependent on the Lee. He was of opinion that the Lee alone could net. be depended upon for the supply of East London and he proposed to combine the Thames works and the Lee works and to use the reservoirs in the Lee Valley for the storage o Thames water should occasion require. In answer to Mr. BALFOUR BROWNE the witness said that the East London Company were taking steps to obviate & I water famine in the future and that the new work would involve a large expenditure. The works in contemplatior, provided for the supply of an increased population. With regard to the question of control the witness said that he would be willing that the water examiner appointed by the Local Government Board and he analyst should be admitted to the works of the company. He thought that the more publicity there was with regard to the companies’ works the better it would be. The analyst, had, of course, access to the taps in EastLondon, but the witness thought that he ought also to have a right to visit the works of the company. If the undertaking were bought by the London County Council that body might obtain profits on any new works which might be made for an increased population. Major-General SCOTT pointed out that they would also have to take the risks. Mr. BRYAN explained the conditions on which the East London Company takes water from the Lee and the way in which water is pumped up to the lower reaches of the Lee Navigation Canal during periods of drought. The CHAIRMAN said that they had heard something about the pumping of polluted water from the lower reaches to the higher reaches. The witness explained that the company had a pumping station at Bromley Lock. At this point the tide passes through at high water and enters the Navigation Canal. The tide flows up as far as Old Ford Lock, at which place the upper pond is about eight feet higher than the lower and the Medical Corps. tide can get no higher up the Navigation Cut. The tidal water, however, can pass round through "back rivers"" higher up. The Lee Navigation is canalised and the THE ROYAL COMMISSION ON THE METRO- tide can get no further than Old Ford. Barges go up the Lee Navigation through the artificial canal. They POLITAN WATER-SUPPLY. also go up certain Iback rivers" to Stratford. The vessels go to Old Ford on the tide and there are gates THE forty-eighth sitting of the Royal Commissioners which open with the tide at Bromley Lock. The barges come into the Navigation Canal on the tide and the gates was held at the Guildhall, Westminster, on Jan. 31st. are closed as soon as the tide begins to ebb. The traffic were the Chairman The Commissioners present (Lord into the Thames then or lowers the head of water depletes Sir John John Hon. Mellor, Dorington, in the Limehouse Cut. At this point the East London ComLlandaff), the Right Sir George Barclay Bruce, Mr. de Bock Porter, Mr. Lewis, pany have put up a pumping station to raise water from the and Major-General Scott. The witnesses examined were 1 THE LANCET, May 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th, 1897. Lieutenant-Colonel Mark Lockwood, M.P., and Mr. William

sacrificing

and