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THE DIET OF THE WEANLING.
992 The student of the unconscious must of midwifery or not. A special Licence of Obstetrics deductions. might be instituted in all the universities, open to remember that certain of its units of memory, those who had held resident posts in maternity the " images lying dormant " in the unconscious,’ or the hospitals or who could produce satisfactory evidence bases of the pyramids of memory complexes (Freud), of having attended 100 cases of labour. Post-graduate are most apt to be revived in, and taken up from, scholarships might be offered by local governments the sitter by a psychic medium during certain mental and arrangements made to allow the holders of these certificates facilities in the larger maternity hospitals. Maternity homes might be opened in connexion with large Eurasian communities, and the holders of the post-graduate scholarships appointed as resident medical officers. In such communities even an externe maternity department might be possible. Holders of the L.O. would be picked men, useful as teachers in medical schools and for appointment to those stations where midwifery is an important item in the work. In connexion with the education of the ordinary medical student more attention might well be paid to instruction in operative work with a dummy and preserved foetus, and less stress laid on vaginal examination and on the witnessing of labour. It is these last items which form an insuperable barrier to most women who might otherwise enter a maternity ward. If a maternity ward were kept private, with an entirely female staff, and the male students were only allowed to enter it twice a week for the clinic, many more The students would receive far women would attend. more knowledge of midwifery from such clinics, which might include a good deal of abdominal examination of waiting cases, than they do from witnessing a case of labour at a distance in the midst of a crowd of men. One thing is clear. European medical men introducing Western medicine in an Eastern country must be prepared to abandon details only suited to a Western environment, and to adopt new methods of teaching suited to the conditions found in the country if they are to attain the best possible results. I am, Sir, yours faithfully, AUDAX. April 4th, 1921. %* This letter, received from a well-informed source in India, may be taken as supplementing the passage in our leading article of April 9th, in which we expressed the hope that the difficulty in obtaining sufficient obstetric experience for Indian students would not prove insurmountable.-ED. L.
"LIFE AFTER DEATH." To the Editor of THE LANCET. SIR,—The adjustment between concrete and abstract knowledge is ever taking place, and sometimes it is sufficiently active to create some sort of disturbance in our mental outlook. When this affects our lay population, as the fashionable " inquiry into spiritualism is now doing-an aftermath of war and suffering-we become concerned as to the national sanity; when it "
appears in our scientific press, as the annotation on Life After Death in the issue of THE LANCET of April 23rd shows, we are made to realise that the purported happenings of spiritualism are left to only a few scientific men, and mainly to the mercies of laymen who do not understand the little we ourselves know of the subliminal or unconscious mind. Tnus we are reminded that we are guilty of neglecting this means of studying the unconscious mind. That these spiritualistic phenomena are most probably the reactions of the unconscious mind, capable itself of error and misdirection, most men versed in psychological findings will agree. But yet, as the atomic nucleus remains unknown in all but its mass and its radio-activity to the physicist, so does the unconscious remain equally unknown to the physician, who only knows those mental " radiations " manifested in his patient’s dreams and in the storms of mental disease. The whole of the latent content of the mind remains, like the structure of the atomic nucleus, unknown. It seems, therefore, that the interest of these phenomena lies in the aspect they present in the study of the unconscious mind, and investigation should not be left to a small scientific group which may be in error, far less to lay amateurs, who are more liable still to erroneous
states, and that it is the demonstration of this know-
ledge acquired by the medium that is so liable to startle, convince, and lead astray anyone who sets himself the task to unravel the problem. It has been stated by responsible men that the unconscious can be definitely excluded as an explanation of these manifestations ; but this seems illogical ; for it is impossible to exclude an entity as the cause of an effect while having only a limited knowledge of that entity, and this is more so in mental physics than else. where. For all we know the phenomena of " materialisation " may be the result of conscious or unconscious falsification on the part of the medium. On the other hand, it must be admitted that all our knowledge of reality is based on instinctive pre-knowledge-a property of the unconscious; further, we know that the events that follow the formation of a retinal image in our fields of vision and their relations to the objects that cause the stimulus, are subjected to a process of unconscious coordination so that we do not get an inverted and diplopic view of the external world. It seems that even our conception of external reality is guided and coordinated by the unconscious. I am, Sir, yours faithfully, M.D. April 30th, 1921. __________________
THE
DIET
OF
THE WEANLING. To the Editor of THE LANCET.
SIR,-The diet of the weanling is a subject of immense importance, but, unhappily, one concerning which disastrous ignorance prevails in this country. Reference has been made in your correspondence columns concerning the amount of milk the weanling requires. Sir, the weanling requires no milk whatever. It amazes me that this elemental truth is not taught in Pure milk, whether from the our medical schools. cow, goat, mare, or ass, is a good enough food in moderation from the time of weaning to the end of the chapter, but-it is not essential. Another truth all but wholly overlooked in this country : the diet of the growing human from the time of weaning onwards should be such as shall enable the jaws to grow sufficiently to allow the whole 32 permanent teeth to take up their proper position without jamming. So to feed our youth as not to allow the masticatory apparatus to develop normally is to rob them of their birthright, of what, indeed, is more truly their birthright than any gift which can be bequeathed by testament. A due appreciation of this truth would do more to improve the health of the community than all the team-work carried on at our medical centres is likely to achieve in the next halfcentury. I say this while fully appreciating the good which is likely to accrue from this movement. So absorbed are we in the investigation of the obscure that we are in some danger of overlooking the glaringly obvious. T a.m. Sir.
yours
faithfully.
HARRY CAMPBELL. 1
Cf. Jung: Collected Papers
on
Anal. Psych., 2nd ed., pp. 374, 410.
LIVERPOOL MATERNITY HOSPITAL.-The annual meeting of this hospital was held on April 28th in the Town Hall, the Lord Mayor presiding. The annual report
increase in the number of patients, the hosbeen full the whole year; many cases had to be refused for lack of accommodation. During the year 27 women medical students and 68 men students took their midwifery practice at the hospital. Eighty-two pupil midwives took the prescribed course of training, and 77 of these were successful in passing the examination of the Central Midwives Board. Sir William Hartley’s generous offer of £25,000 and a site for a new hospital has been accepted, and the Board is about to raise additional funds to set about building this hospital. On the year’s workings there is a deficit of £1044, and the committee is anxious for increased contributions.
showed
an
pital having
’
"LIFE AFTER DEATH." To the Editor of THE LANCET. SIR,—The adjustment between concrete and abstract knowledge is ever taking place, and sometimes it is sufficiently active to create some sort of disturbance in our mental outlook. When this affects our lay population, as the fashionable " inquiry into spiritualism is now doing-an aftermath of war and suffering-we become concerned as to the national sanity; when it "
appears in our scientific press, as the annotation on Life After Death in the issue of THE LANCET of April 23rd shows, we are made to realise that the purported happenings of spiritualism are left to only a few scientific men, and mainly to the mercies of laymen who do not understand the little we ourselves know of the subliminal or unconscious mind. Tnus we are reminded that we are guilty of neglecting this means of studying the unconscious mind. That these spiritualistic phenomena are most probably the reactions of the unconscious mind, capable itself of error and misdirection, most men versed in psychological findings will agree. But yet, as the atomic nucleus remains unknown in all but its mass and its radio-activity to the physicist, so does the unconscious remain equally unknown to the physician, who only knows those mental " radiations " manifested in his patient’s dreams and in the storms of mental disease. The whole of the latent content of the mind remains, like the structure of the atomic nucleus, unknown. It seems, therefore, that the interest of these phenomena lies in the aspect they present in the study of the unconscious mind, and investigation should not be left to a small scientific group which may be in error, far less to lay amateurs, who are more liable still to erroneous
states, and that it is the demonstration of this know-
ledge acquired by the medium that is so liable to startle, convince, and lead astray anyone who sets himself the task to unravel the problem. It has been stated by responsible men that the unconscious can be definitely excluded as an explanation of these manifestations ; but this seems illogical ; for it is impossible to exclude an entity as the cause of an effect while having only a limited knowledge of that entity, and this is more so in mental physics than else. where. For all we know the phenomena of " materialisation " may be the result of conscious or unconscious falsification on the part of the medium. On the other hand, it must be admitted that all our knowledge of reality is based on instinctive pre-knowledge-a property of the unconscious; further, we know that the events that follow the formation of a retinal image in our fields of vision and their relations to the objects that cause the stimulus, are subjected to a process of unconscious coordination so that we do not get an inverted and diplopic view of the external world. It seems that even our conception of external reality is guided and coordinated by the unconscious. I am, Sir, yours faithfully, M.D. April 30th, 1921. __________________
THE
DIET
OF
THE WEANLING. To the Editor of THE LANCET.
SIR,-The diet of the weanling is a subject of immense importance, but, unhappily, one concerning which disastrous ignorance prevails in this country. Reference has been made in your correspondence columns concerning the amount of milk the weanling requires. Sir, the weanling requires no milk whatever. It amazes me that this elemental truth is not taught in Pure milk, whether from the our medical schools. cow, goat, mare, or ass, is a good enough food in moderation from the time of weaning to the end of the chapter, but-it is not essential. Another truth all but wholly overlooked in this country : the diet of the growing human from the time of weaning onwards should be such as shall enable the jaws to grow sufficiently to allow the whole 32 permanent teeth to take up their proper position without jamming. So to feed our youth as not to allow the masticatory apparatus to develop normally is to rob them of their birthright, of what, indeed, is more truly their birthright than any gift which can be bequeathed by testament. A due appreciation of this truth would do more to improve the health of the community than all the team-work carried on at our medical centres is likely to achieve in the next halfcentury. I say this while fully appreciating the good which is likely to accrue from this movement. So absorbed are we in the investigation of the obscure that we are in some danger of overlooking the glaringly obvious. T a.m. Sir.
yours
faithfully.
HARRY CAMPBELL. 1
Cf. Jung: Collected Papers
on
Anal. Psych., 2nd ed., pp. 374, 410.
LIVERPOOL MATERNITY HOSPITAL.-The annual meeting of this hospital was held on April 28th in the Town Hall, the Lord Mayor presiding. The annual report
increase in the number of patients, the hosbeen full the whole year; many cases had to be refused for lack of accommodation. During the year 27 women medical students and 68 men students took their midwifery practice at the hospital. Eighty-two pupil midwives took the prescribed course of training, and 77 of these were successful in passing the examination of the Central Midwives Board. Sir William Hartley’s generous offer of £25,000 and a site for a new hospital has been accepted, and the Board is about to raise additional funds to set about building this hospital. On the year’s workings there is a deficit of £1044, and the committee is anxious for increased contributions.
showed
an
pital having
’