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THE BRITISH MEDICAL BENEVOLENT FUND.
595 the new Act comes fully into force in 1905 a considerable demand for trained midwives is likely to arise and for some time it is probable that there will be a dearth of properly trained women. The livelihood to be gained by practice as a midwife amongst the poor must often be very small and very precarious and the initial expense will act as a deterrent to many who might wish to undertake such work. If a sufficient supply of fully trained women is to be provided for the poor it is necessary that the funds for their training should be contributed in many instances by the charitable public. The association undertakes to arrange for the training of suitable women in approved hospitals and other institutions and centres ; it is anxious to cooperate in this work with local associations and it will be prepared as funds allow to make grants and loans in aid of training to associations and individuals. It is felt that in a large number of cases free training will have to be given under agreed conditions as to the subsequent work of the candidates, and it is also thought that a practical form of help may be in grants to local committees for the part maintenance of a midwife in districts too thinly populated to support one without such help. A home has been opened at East Ham by the association in cooperation with the Plaistow Maternity Charity, where four pupils at a time are trained in a crowded and very poor district under a competent midwife for the certificate of the Central Midwives Board. The objects of the association are worthy of all recognition and we hope that this appeal will meet with a favourable reception from those who have the interests of the poor at heart. As the registered midwife is now a legal institution it behoves us all, whatever we may think of the arguments that led to her creation, to see that she is a competent person. The offices of the association are at Hanover
number and
percentage of the patients in the Pretoria. on July 31st, 1903, and indic3.ting those
Leper Asylum
who had eaten fish before
becoming lepers, the kind of fish consumed, and the variety of leprosy from which they suffered. The facts with regard to the white and coloured races are interesting. 95 per cent. of the white patients had eaten fish and 45 per cent. had partaken of cured fish. Amongst the coloured races only 30 per cent. had ever tasted fish of any sort and only 10 per cent. cured fish, and there was this result, as shown by the statistics, that there were fewer cases of leprosy in the asylum amongst those who had habitually eaten fish than amongst those wha had not. These observations would seem to disprove the theory enunciated by Mr. Hutchinson and it will be interesting to observe whether Dr. Turner’s conclusions are supported by other authorities.
THE BRITISH MEDICAL BENEVOLENT
FUND.
WE publish in another column a brief notice of the annual meeting of the supporters of the British Medical Benevolent Fund and desire, not for the first time, to bring the claims of this charity prominently before our readers. The committee of the fund pleads earnestly for continued and increased help without which many of the urgent applications made to the charity must be passed over; and it brings, in our opinion, sound arguments forward why its efforts The cost of administration is only should be supported. just over 5 per cent. of the funds at its disposal and, as there is no canvassing, candidates for benevoAll legacies, lent aid are spared the pain of publicity. are invested in trust securities and thus an assured income is obtained for the annuity department. We think that these considerations should recommend the fund to those Chambers, 12, Buckingham-street, Strand, London, W.C., benevolent persons who desire to see their gifts well adto which address any donations may be sent: numsterea ana wno noia 1jnati a cnancy snouict aeai witn, the public and its immediate supporters upon strictly busiTHE ETIOLOGY OF LEPROSY. ness principles. The British Medical Benevolent Fund does IN an annotation which appeared in THE LANCET of excellent and valuable work in an unostentatious and Jan. 30th, p. 318, we expressed a hope that further investi- economical fashion, and we should be glad to hear that gations would be forthcoming which would corroborate or accessions to its funds enabled it to extend its operations. ..
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otherwise Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson’s theory with regard to A RARE DEFENCE. the connexion between fish-eating and leprosy. We have ncw received a copy of a special report by Dr. George ALTHOUGH the general public are not lacking in a proper Turner, medical officer of health of the Transvaal, entitled gratitude for the services of the medical profession, yet "Fish and Leprosy (Government Printing Works, Pretoria, when it comes to an expression of opinion dramatists, 1903). Dr. Turner does not agree with Mr. Hutchinson novelists, and satirists of all kinds have from the days that the eating of decomposing or imperfectly cured fish of Moliere chosen rather to hold the medical man up as an is the chief cause of the prevalence of leprosy. In easy butt than to employ the forces of ridicule in his just support of his view he points out that leprosy is fairly defence. With all the more pleasure, then, did we read an common in Basutoland. He thinks that it is probable that article signed "S. R. L."in the Manchester Daily Dispato7& the disease was introduced amongst the Basutos by the of Feb. 1Oth. The author of this article-whoever he isHottentots but he argues that it does not follow that the writes "All for the Dear Doctor,"and he is not only witty source of infection was cured fish. He considers such an and amusing in the medical man’s behalf and at the expense of those who decry him but also extremely sensible. To occurrence most improbable because the Basuto in his own land does not eat fish ; he never fishes ; and will not ea fish begin with, he holds sound views upon the value of a given to him by others. Dr. Turner gives a table showing medical man’s advice and attention, altogether apart from the proportion of cases of leprosy amongst the different any drugs that the practitioner may or may not choose to races reported at the census of 1901 in the Cape Colony. employ. He deprecates the common way in which the It is shown that excepting those of European race the medical man and the medicine are confounded, as though Kaffir is the least affected, then in order comes the Malay, they were integral parts of one obnoxious whole. " Onethe most frequently attacked being the Hottentot. Yet might as well give up the shoe-maker because he did not the Malay is essentially a fish-eater in whose hands the make one able to walk about in bare feet," says our author, catching and "washing" of fish chiefly rest. Dr. Turner ’’as the doctor because his medicine does not provide a new argues that if the theory regarding the etiological in- stomach, or liver, or whatever the defective organ under fluence of cured fish were true leprosy should be most treatment may happen to be." Again, "S. R. L."combats prevalent amongst the Malays ; but, as he has pointed the way in which the man of the legal and the man of the out, such is not the case. Probably the white man medical profession are constantly viewed in the same light. eats fish more frequently than does any other class of The public, he says, regards one as the parasite of crime the population, with the exception of the Malay, yet and the other as the parasite of disease. Yet, according to he suffers least of all. A table is given showing the him, no comparison could be more unfair, for whereas
number and
percentage of the patients in the Pretoria. on July 31st, 1903, and indic3.ting those
Leper Asylum
who had eaten fish before
becoming lepers, the kind of fish consumed, and the variety of leprosy from which they suffered. The facts with regard to the white and coloured races are interesting. 95 per cent. of the white patients had eaten fish and 45 per cent. had partaken of cured fish. Amongst the coloured races only 30 per cent. had ever tasted fish of any sort and only 10 per cent. cured fish, and there was this result, as shown by the statistics, that there were fewer cases of leprosy in the asylum amongst those who had habitually eaten fish than amongst those wha had not. These observations would seem to disprove the theory enunciated by Mr. Hutchinson and it will be interesting to observe whether Dr. Turner’s conclusions are supported by other authorities.
THE BRITISH MEDICAL BENEVOLENT
FUND.
WE publish in another column a brief notice of the annual meeting of the supporters of the British Medical Benevolent Fund and desire, not for the first time, to bring the claims of this charity prominently before our readers. The committee of the fund pleads earnestly for continued and increased help without which many of the urgent applications made to the charity must be passed over; and it brings, in our opinion, sound arguments forward why its efforts The cost of administration is only should be supported. just over 5 per cent. of the funds at its disposal and, as there is no canvassing, candidates for benevoAll legacies, lent aid are spared the pain of publicity. are invested in trust securities and thus an assured income is obtained for the annuity department. We think that these considerations should recommend the fund to those Chambers, 12, Buckingham-street, Strand, London, W.C., benevolent persons who desire to see their gifts well adto which address any donations may be sent: numsterea ana wno noia 1jnati a cnancy snouict aeai witn, the public and its immediate supporters upon strictly busiTHE ETIOLOGY OF LEPROSY. ness principles. The British Medical Benevolent Fund does IN an annotation which appeared in THE LANCET of excellent and valuable work in an unostentatious and Jan. 30th, p. 318, we expressed a hope that further investi- economical fashion, and we should be glad to hear that gations would be forthcoming which would corroborate or accessions to its funds enabled it to extend its operations. ..
J
I
I
1
11
I
I
.,
1
11
1 1
-,,
otherwise Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson’s theory with regard to A RARE DEFENCE. the connexion between fish-eating and leprosy. We have ncw received a copy of a special report by Dr. George ALTHOUGH the general public are not lacking in a proper Turner, medical officer of health of the Transvaal, entitled gratitude for the services of the medical profession, yet "Fish and Leprosy (Government Printing Works, Pretoria, when it comes to an expression of opinion dramatists, 1903). Dr. Turner does not agree with Mr. Hutchinson novelists, and satirists of all kinds have from the days that the eating of decomposing or imperfectly cured fish of Moliere chosen rather to hold the medical man up as an is the chief cause of the prevalence of leprosy. In easy butt than to employ the forces of ridicule in his just support of his view he points out that leprosy is fairly defence. With all the more pleasure, then, did we read an common in Basutoland. He thinks that it is probable that article signed "S. R. L."in the Manchester Daily Dispato7& the disease was introduced amongst the Basutos by the of Feb. 1Oth. The author of this article-whoever he isHottentots but he argues that it does not follow that the writes "All for the Dear Doctor,"and he is not only witty source of infection was cured fish. He considers such an and amusing in the medical man’s behalf and at the expense of those who decry him but also extremely sensible. To occurrence most improbable because the Basuto in his own land does not eat fish ; he never fishes ; and will not ea fish begin with, he holds sound views upon the value of a given to him by others. Dr. Turner gives a table showing medical man’s advice and attention, altogether apart from the proportion of cases of leprosy amongst the different any drugs that the practitioner may or may not choose to races reported at the census of 1901 in the Cape Colony. employ. He deprecates the common way in which the It is shown that excepting those of European race the medical man and the medicine are confounded, as though Kaffir is the least affected, then in order comes the Malay, they were integral parts of one obnoxious whole. " Onethe most frequently attacked being the Hottentot. Yet might as well give up the shoe-maker because he did not the Malay is essentially a fish-eater in whose hands the make one able to walk about in bare feet," says our author, catching and "washing" of fish chiefly rest. Dr. Turner ’’as the doctor because his medicine does not provide a new argues that if the theory regarding the etiological in- stomach, or liver, or whatever the defective organ under fluence of cured fish were true leprosy should be most treatment may happen to be." Again, "S. R. L."combats prevalent amongst the Malays ; but, as he has pointed the way in which the man of the legal and the man of the out, such is not the case. Probably the white man medical profession are constantly viewed in the same light. eats fish more frequently than does any other class of The public, he says, regards one as the parasite of crime the population, with the exception of the Malay, yet and the other as the parasite of disease. Yet, according to he suffers least of all. A table is given showing the him, no comparison could be more unfair, for whereas