THE ARMY MEDICAL SERVICE.

772 Had I recognised the personal animus which dictated his first slanders, I should not have deigned to reply ; but, having once responded, this second contradiction seems to be an obligation. I would remind Mr. May that he has permitted an imaginary grievance so to warp his judgment as to lead him to disregard the simple courtesies of correspondence, and to forget the social laws which restrain men from makingZI) accusations that are unsupported by an iota of proof. With imaginary wrongs no argument can be held, and Mr. May’s professed readiness to "retract " when contradicted is no justification of false and injurious statements circulated in a public journal. No retractation or apology can remove the culpability of such couduct. With these remarks, I take leave of Mr. May, whose future effusions I shall not notice. Believe me to be, faithfully yours, ALFRED BAKER. 1’0 the Editor

of THE LANCET.

SIR,-In your Annotations of the 18th May you use the word "eligible"" in a -sense which implies that only such Fellows as you mention in order of seniority are eligible for election into the Council. If this were the fact, the choice of suitable representatives would indeed be limited, and if generally so small a number were suitable it would be sometimes difficult to avoid making an improper selection. This possible misconception induces me to remind your readers of the conditions which constitute eligibility, and also, as it seems to me, which govern the mode of reckoning the seniority of the eligible. According to the 7th section of the Charter of 1852 no Fellow is eligible who has not been a Fellow of the College for fourteen years, or a member for twenty years, or is not in the bond fide practice of his profession as a surgeon, or is practising as an apothecary at the time of election. But every Fellow of such standing as Fellow or member as aforesaid shall be eligible as a member of the Council. Since all the gentlemen whom you name have fourteen years of fellowship, their seniority among themselves must be counted from the dates of their diploma of membership. Furthermore, it is clear from the wording of these conditions that seniority was not intended to be the main qualification for election into the Council, but that the Fellows should select from the large body who have the moderate seniority insisted upon. There are 850 members who have fourteen years’ standing as Fellows, besides those of more recent fellowship whose seniority as Members brings them within the eligible category, It is important that the electors bear in mind the intentions of the Charter to counteract the tendency to give mere seniority undue influence in the elections, and thus ensure that the Council shall consist entirely of members still actively engaged in professional work, to the exclusion of those whose chief claim is their seniority. A further proof of this intention of the framers of the Charter is the clause in the 7th section of the Charter to which you occasionally draw attention-namely, " If any member of the Council shall at any time after his election cease to be in the bond fide practice of his profession as a surgeon, or shall practise as an apothecary, he shajl thereupon cease to be such member of the Council, and shall forfeit all his rights and privileges as such member thereof." No stronger evidence could be given that the Council should consist solely of practising surgeons, and consequently of those best able to represent the wishes and opinions of their brethren with whom they are of necessity continually in communication. I have the less scruple in urging the importance of not being too rigidly governed by the claims of seniority when selecting candidates at the present time, because among those whom you have’ already mentioned as possible candidates there is not one who need rest his claim on his seniority, but has solid reason in his own professional position soliciting election into the Council of the College of

for

Surgeons.

I

am.

Sir,

vours.

&c..

BERKELEY HILL. word " " to Hill objects could The which Mr. eligible * not, on his own showing, reasonably be expected to extend to all the Fellows who may or can offer themselves for election. Mr. Hill tells us there are at least 850 eligible candidates, and we offer his calculation as a satisfactory justi-

fication for limiting the number of names to seven or eight. Even so, the list is unusually long. Although the vacancies have not yet been officially announced, there are, webelieve, not less than seven Fellows who have made known their intention of contesting the election. Besides these, any or all of the three retiring candidates may also seek re-election. With ten candidates for three seats we cannot join in Alr, Hill’s lamentation over the narrowness of the choice. The word " eligible " was intended to imply that the gentlemen we named were the Fellows who had by seniority and rota. tion come to the front. Mr. Hill’s argument about the seniority reckoning from the date of membership is logically inconsistent. The membership of itself confers no right, claim, or privilege on the holder, either to vote or become a candidate for election. Section 10, Charter 7th Victoria, states " that from henceforth no member of the said College, who shall not also be a Fellow of the same, shall be eligible as a member of the Council of the said College "; and Section 7 of Charter 15th Victoria provides that no Fellow shall be eligible until he have been a Fellow for fourteen years. It is the fellowship, and the fellowship only, that gives a member the right to vote, and it is his standing as a Fellow that establishes his eligibility for election. The membership alone cannot do this, no matter how long its duration. The specious argument that the membership should decide the seniority was adopted by a coterie fora set purpose a few years ago, but has never been regarded with favour by the well-informed. It has hitherto been the custom to allow the seniority among the Fellows to determine the order in which candidates shall come forward, and what custom has in this instance established, good taste and feeling approve.-ED. L.

THE

CAUSE OF DEATH OF THE LATE ARCHBISHOP WHATELY.

To the Editor of THE LANCET. SIR,—111 THE LANCET of May 18th there is a communication from Dr. Scriven, in which he says "he attended the late Archbishop Whately in his last ilhiess,"and asserts that I "have been entirely misinformed as to the nature of his disease and the cause of his death," in having attributed it to haemorrhage, which might have been avoided by any ordinary surgical care, but that there were only homoeopaths to attend him. Dr. Scriven’s correction of my misstatement, as he is pleased to call it, is as follows in his letter :-" After death I renewed the dressings which had been applied on the leg the day before, and discovered that a small vessel had given way, allowing the escape of an ounce and a half, or, at most, two ounces of blood." That is his own statement in his own words, that after death, and after the removal of dressings which had been allowed to remain applied from the day before, he then discovered that a small vessel had given way, and that an ounce and a half, or, at most, two ounces, of blood, had escaped. How he discovered the size of the vessel, and how he measured the quantity escaped, he does not tell us. The following is the account of the cause of death given in his life and correspondence by his daughter, E. vol. ii., p. 419 :-"The physician arrived at his usual hour (12 o’clock), ten minutes after Dr. Whately had breathed his last. We then found that the immediate cause of deatlt had been the bursting of an arterlf in the leg." I do not think it necessary to make any comment. Yours trulv. D. J. CORRIGAN.

Whately,

THE ARMY

MEDICAL SERVICE.

To the Editor of THE LANCET. SIR,-If, as I learn from a recent number of the Orerland
773 be read, and not sham as at present. The mistake about this rank is shown very distinctly in India-after all, our greatest and most military dependency. We have in India a staff corps, and members of this staff corps are employed in various civil employments, but this does not do away with their military rank. For instance, the first name on the Madras Staff Corps is Robson Benson, assistant commissary-general, but a colonel in the army. Now, Robson Benson is not addressed as CommissaryGeneral Benson"; he is Colonel Benson, and when he becomes a general, will be General Benson briefly. Why not treat, say, Surgeon-General Mackenzie the same way, and call him General Mackenzie ? So of the Engineers, we have, say, Major Scott. You do not call him Engineer-Major Scott; he is plainly Major Scott, R.E. Why, if he were a doctor, should you call him Surgeon-Major Scott ? Why not call him Major Scott, M.D. ? If you give a man a title which carries a certain rank, give him honestly the title and rank; don’t clip it and it in such a manner that it does not pass curThat it does not pass current I could give rent. you hundreds of proofs ; let one suffice. Turn to an Army List. I will take the one I have already quoted. In her Majesty’s 43rd, if you look at the staff, you see four names down: "instructor of musketry," "adjutant," "quartermaster,"" medical officer." The medical officer’s name last; and yet he is a surgeon-major, ranks as a lieutenant-colonel. The three names ab01’e him are lieutenants only. Comment on this is needless. What is rank, if it is treated thus ? It is the same all through. If this puerile game, which deceives no one, were honestly done away with, the Army Medical Service would be as popular as the Engineers or "

maul

house-surgeon there, and the friendship between them Benjamin’s death. Mr. Chambers, of Leamington, required an assistant, and on applying to Mr. Alcock, young Jephson was strongly recommended by the latter to -Nlr. Chambers. This was’in 1818. The success of the young surgeon, first as assistant and then as principal, was remarkable, and seeing his way, from the reputation he had already acquired, beyond the place he lived in, he determined to fit himself for the highest success attainable. He went to Glasgow, where, after the usual residence, he proceeded to the degree of M.D. In 1828 he removed to

was

continued until Sir

Cheltenham, where it was his intention to reside and practise, but a deputation of his old friends and patients waited on him, requesting him to return to Leamington. From this time forward until 1848, exactly twenty years, he had what probably was, and possibly still is, the most extraordinary success ever

achieved

by

any

physician.

Patients from all

parts of the kingdom, from the colonies, and from the conti-

nent of

Europe thronged to Leamington. His time was occupied almost night and day. He received summonsesrare in those days-to all parts of the country for consultations, and he had a specially contrived travelling carriage made for these journeys. The income he acquired was almost fabulous ; for several years it was reached 24,000 in a single year.

JE20,000, and it once As the result of these labours his health began to fail in 1846. In 1847 he first perceived that failure of vision which in 1848 resulted, in spite of the best of advice from Dalrymple and Sichel, in total blindness. It was attributed to what was then called gouty amaurosis, but it was probably not unconnected with failure of nerve power, the result of over-work. Subsequent to 1848 he lived in retirement in the house which he built for himself during his great success. The circumstances which led to the extraordinary success of Dr. Jephson are not likely to recur. He was most generous with his wealth, and LeamingArtillery. Yours faithfully, ton has in her public institutions of all kinds to remember him with deep gratitude. He was for many years a county MILES INDICUS. magistrate, and in Warwickshire was, apart from his profession, most deservedly admired ’and esteemed. About a ARSENIC IN VIOLET POWDER. month ago his increasing weakness arising from failure of To the Editor of THE LANCET. nervous power, probably dependent upon degeneration of the nerve structure, alarmed his friends. Dr. Quain, of Harleyweek the a member of this SIR,-During past hospital street ; Dr. of Birmingham; and Mr. Kimbell, of Heslop, brought me a sample of violet powder for examination. Its Knowle, Warwickshire, gave every assistance to his local use in the nursery had been attended with the most serious medical friend, Dr. Thursfield, of Leamington ; but, in spite results-results which were at first attributed to other causes. of all their efforts, he gradually and surely declined, and On analysis it was found to contain white arsenic, and some died on May 14th. He married, in 1826, Anne Eliza, daughter of the Rev. lead compound, probably the oxycarbonate. I determined the amount of white arsenic, and found 4 grains in 100 Dr. Geldart, Rector of Kirk Deighton, in Yorkshire, who in 1874. One child, who died in infancy, was the issue grains of powder. The precise amount of the lead com- died of this marriage. Dr. Jephson was buried, quite privately, am was not determined. I informed that the powder: beside his pound wife, in the rural churchyard of Old Milverton, was purchased at a respectable retail chemist’s in the north of London. Judging from the presence of compounds of the near Leamington, on May 17th, 1878. two metals-lead and arsenicum-in what we may call moderate proportions, this powder appears to be one of those vile toilet preparations noticed in the columns of THE LANCET a short time ago. I am. vours. &c.. WILLIAM FOSTER, B.A., F.C.S. Lecturer on Chemistry, Middlesex Hospital Med. Coll. ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS OF ENGLAND. The following gentlemen, having passed the required examination for the diploma, were duly admitted of the College at meetings of the Court of Examiners on Tuesday and Wednesday last :Barnard, J. Henry, Fulham. Biden, W. Price, Peckham. Blacker, Ernest, L.R.C.P. Edin., Bath. HENRY JEPHSON, M.D. Clements, W. George, Rochester. WE announced last week the death of one of the most Corbyn, F. Henry, L.R.C.P. Edin., Cheltenham. Davis, George, L.R.C.P. Lond., Blackheath. remarkable physicians which this century has seen. We Dowsley, D. Henry, M.D., Clinton, Canada west. allude to Henry Jephson, M.D., of Leamington, who died at Drought, E. Napoleon, Winchmore-hill. Fa1ùkner, A. Samuel, Liverpool. his residence, Beech Lawn, on May 14th. He was born on Groome, W. Wollaston, Monks Soham. October 4th, 1798, near Mansfield, in Nottinghamshire. As Hough, C. Henry, Cambridge. Jackson, G. Henry, L.R.C.P. Edin., Liverpool. a youth he showed much interest in scientific studies, and Jones, R. Dennett, Conway, North Wales. Macdonald, G. Alexander, Hull. while experimenting with fulminating silver he blew off the M’Keough, G. Thomas, M.D., Chatham, Canada. first and second fingers of the right hand. In after-life, when -Alorton, A. Charles, L.S.A., Aylsham. Parke, T. Henry, Tideswell. his marvellous success in practice left him hardly a minute Pettinger, J. Henry, Manchester. which he might call his own, he had a laboratory in which Porter, W. Smith, Sheffield. Powell, J. James, Weybridge. he occasionally snatched a few hours of relaxation. When Russell, J. W. Leonard, Sheffield. quite a youth he became a pupil of Mr. Alcock, and was Stein, C. Guthrie, Cape Town. Stuart, H. Ogilvy, L.S.A., Woolwich. entered at St. George’s Hospital. Here he made the acquaintWebb, H. Langley, L.S.A., Cheadle, Staffordshire. ance of Mr. Brodie, afterwards Sir Benjamin Brodie, who Williams, Dawson, Bumb;., near York. over

MedicalNews.

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Obituary.

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