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THE EMPLOYMENT OF MARRIED MEDICAL WOMEN
146 "
obtainable, if desired, from the official Manual of the Medical Aspects of Chemical Warfare " (1926) or, with later details, in a paper just issued by Dr. Bischoff4 of Lugano, who describes the symptoms, signs, and.treatment of various forms of gas-poisoning. Evidently the medical profession will soon be expected to enlarge its repertoire so as to be able to deal with these
new
man-made
diseases.
But
like
skill, training, and experience a professional woman may have, her service should be lost to the community on her marriage ; the organisations who made representations to the Council will be disappointed that, though its practice has been altered in respect of certain classes of certain professions, the Council has not accepted the principle underlying their representations. For ourselves, we hold that the step just taken is in the right direction and have little
other
pathological conditions they are more easily prevented
doubt that its success will warrant an extension in London and elsewhere of the groups of women allowed to retain their posts after marriage.
(one would suppose) than cured.
THE EMPLOYMENT OF MARRIED MEDICAL WOMEN
JUVENILE RHEUMATISM IN INDIA
THE general purposes committee of the L.C.C. have been considering representations received from various organisations with reference to the employthe object of the ment of married women; has been to secure that married representations women should be eligible for employment without restriction throughout the Council’s service. The committee report that they have considered the question from the point of view of the public service and not in the interest of any category of the staff and have come to the conclusion that in two instances, those of the medical and teaching professions, material advantage to the public service would result if married women were eligible for service as officers of the Council. Their main reasons are that the duties of both doctor and teacher call for certain personal qualities which may be thought to be enriched by marriage, and that the training of women entering these professions involves in many cases considerable expenditure of public money, the fruits of which are lost to..the community if the career of every woman is
terminated
by marriage. They, propose, therefore,
to certain limitations, that the restrictions which at present debar married women in these
subject
professions from entering or remaining in the Council’s
service should be withdrawn. As far as medical concerned the new proposal will apply to full-time doctors, except in the hospital and institutional medical and mental hospital service, and to non-resident part-time and sessional doctors. The holders of resident appointments are excluded from the new proposals because it is inherent in the nature of such appointments that their holders should be available for duty when required at any hour of the day or night, and the committee feel that the demands thus imposed are incompatible with the normal domestic and family responsibilities of a married woman. There is, moreover, the immediate practical difficulty of a lack of married quarters. In the event of pregnancy medical women as well as teachers will be required to take 17 weeks’ compulsory confinement leave on half pay, of which 4 weeks is to be taken before and 13 after the confinement (4 weeks if the child does not live). Payment for the last 8 weeks of this period is to be withheld until the teacher or medical woman has been back at work for 3 months. The adoption of these proposals, which were accepted by the London County Council on July 16th, will involve some adjustments in superannuation provisions and certain exceptions in respect of officers transferred from the Local Government Board who were engaged under different conditions of service. The concessions are in the nature of a compromise which will give complete satisfaction neither to diehards nor to feminists. The former will continue to protest that however muchl
women are
’
4 Massnahmen vor, während and nach Flugzengangriffen By L. Bischoff. Basel: Benno Schwabe and Co. 1935. Pp. 28. Fr. 1.
To the controversy on whether rheumatic fever in the tropics, Dr. K. L. Wigcontributes a record of 30 cases of rheumatic infection in childhood collected in the out-patient department of the Mayo Hospital, Lahore. At a time when the subject was under discussion his interest was aroused by an obvious example of juvenile rheumatism in a boy of ten who developed high fever, swollen joints, subcutaneous nodules, and carditis ; salicylates controlled the arthritic phase, but the carditis seems to have been progressive and fatal. Of the 30 patients with evidence of juvenile rheumatism seen at the Mayo Hospital since the beginning of last year, 10 have had simple articular rheumatism (usually subacute) and the brief summaries given, with descriptions of recurrent sore-throat and joint involvement, leave no doubt of the nature of the malady. The same applies to the other two groups-i.e., 5 children with chorea, 4 of whom had a history of joint pains, and 15 patients with involvement of the heart. Some of the latter were adults with established mitral stenosis, with or without auricular fibrillation ; the younger ones had early signs of valvular disease. Three young adults, aged 22, 24, and 25, had aortic regurgitation with mitral stenosis, following a definite history of rheumatic arthritis; and this is important since some observers have claimed that, while syphilitic aortic disease is common, rheumatic carditis is rare in the Punjab. The patients in the present series came from villages as well as from congested areas of the towns. Most of them were poor, but that may be because the hospital outpatient population is mostly poor. The rheumatic nature of the illnesses cannot be doubted and it is noticeable that usually, as in this country, the joints were involved at early ages.
occurs
a meeting of the council of the Royal College Surgeons of England on July llth Sir Cuthbert Wallace was elected president. THE resignation is announced of Miss Ruth Darbyshire, R.R.C., after a serious illness, from the post’of matron of University College Hospital. Miss Darbyshire was one of the two matrons who sat on the Lancet Commission on Nursing (1930-32) and deeply impressed her colleagues by her breadth of view, candour, and anxiety to modernise the conditions of hospital service while retaining its
AT
of
fine traditions. At the end of 1932 she was elected a member of the General Nursing Council for England and Wales, and in January of this year she was made, vice-chairman of the Council. Her retirement from hospital work is less to be regretted inasmuch as it will give her more leisure in the future for her activities on behalf of a rapidly developing
profession. 1 Indian Med. Gazette,
May, 1935,
p. 260.
obtainable, if desired, from the official Manual of the Medical Aspects of Chemical Warfare " (1926) or, with later details, in a paper just issued by Dr. Bischoff4 of Lugano, who describes the symptoms, signs, and.treatment of various forms of gas-poisoning. Evidently the medical profession will soon be expected to enlarge its repertoire so as to be able to deal with these
new
man-made
diseases.
But
like
skill, training, and experience a professional woman may have, her service should be lost to the community on her marriage ; the organisations who made representations to the Council will be disappointed that, though its practice has been altered in respect of certain classes of certain professions, the Council has not accepted the principle underlying their representations. For ourselves, we hold that the step just taken is in the right direction and have little
other
pathological conditions they are more easily prevented
doubt that its success will warrant an extension in London and elsewhere of the groups of women allowed to retain their posts after marriage.
(one would suppose) than cured.
THE EMPLOYMENT OF MARRIED MEDICAL WOMEN
JUVENILE RHEUMATISM IN INDIA
THE general purposes committee of the L.C.C. have been considering representations received from various organisations with reference to the employthe object of the ment of married women; has been to secure that married representations women should be eligible for employment without restriction throughout the Council’s service. The committee report that they have considered the question from the point of view of the public service and not in the interest of any category of the staff and have come to the conclusion that in two instances, those of the medical and teaching professions, material advantage to the public service would result if married women were eligible for service as officers of the Council. Their main reasons are that the duties of both doctor and teacher call for certain personal qualities which may be thought to be enriched by marriage, and that the training of women entering these professions involves in many cases considerable expenditure of public money, the fruits of which are lost to..the community if the career of every woman is
terminated
by marriage. They, propose, therefore,
to certain limitations, that the restrictions which at present debar married women in these
subject
professions from entering or remaining in the Council’s
service should be withdrawn. As far as medical concerned the new proposal will apply to full-time doctors, except in the hospital and institutional medical and mental hospital service, and to non-resident part-time and sessional doctors. The holders of resident appointments are excluded from the new proposals because it is inherent in the nature of such appointments that their holders should be available for duty when required at any hour of the day or night, and the committee feel that the demands thus imposed are incompatible with the normal domestic and family responsibilities of a married woman. There is, moreover, the immediate practical difficulty of a lack of married quarters. In the event of pregnancy medical women as well as teachers will be required to take 17 weeks’ compulsory confinement leave on half pay, of which 4 weeks is to be taken before and 13 after the confinement (4 weeks if the child does not live). Payment for the last 8 weeks of this period is to be withheld until the teacher or medical woman has been back at work for 3 months. The adoption of these proposals, which were accepted by the London County Council on July 16th, will involve some adjustments in superannuation provisions and certain exceptions in respect of officers transferred from the Local Government Board who were engaged under different conditions of service. The concessions are in the nature of a compromise which will give complete satisfaction neither to diehards nor to feminists. The former will continue to protest that however muchl
women are
’
4 Massnahmen vor, während and nach Flugzengangriffen By L. Bischoff. Basel: Benno Schwabe and Co. 1935. Pp. 28. Fr. 1.
To the controversy on whether rheumatic fever in the tropics, Dr. K. L. Wigcontributes a record of 30 cases of rheumatic infection in childhood collected in the out-patient department of the Mayo Hospital, Lahore. At a time when the subject was under discussion his interest was aroused by an obvious example of juvenile rheumatism in a boy of ten who developed high fever, swollen joints, subcutaneous nodules, and carditis ; salicylates controlled the arthritic phase, but the carditis seems to have been progressive and fatal. Of the 30 patients with evidence of juvenile rheumatism seen at the Mayo Hospital since the beginning of last year, 10 have had simple articular rheumatism (usually subacute) and the brief summaries given, with descriptions of recurrent sore-throat and joint involvement, leave no doubt of the nature of the malady. The same applies to the other two groups-i.e., 5 children with chorea, 4 of whom had a history of joint pains, and 15 patients with involvement of the heart. Some of the latter were adults with established mitral stenosis, with or without auricular fibrillation ; the younger ones had early signs of valvular disease. Three young adults, aged 22, 24, and 25, had aortic regurgitation with mitral stenosis, following a definite history of rheumatic arthritis; and this is important since some observers have claimed that, while syphilitic aortic disease is common, rheumatic carditis is rare in the Punjab. The patients in the present series came from villages as well as from congested areas of the towns. Most of them were poor, but that may be because the hospital outpatient population is mostly poor. The rheumatic nature of the illnesses cannot be doubted and it is noticeable that usually, as in this country, the joints were involved at early ages.
occurs
a meeting of the council of the Royal College Surgeons of England on July llth Sir Cuthbert Wallace was elected president. THE resignation is announced of Miss Ruth Darbyshire, R.R.C., after a serious illness, from the post’of matron of University College Hospital. Miss Darbyshire was one of the two matrons who sat on the Lancet Commission on Nursing (1930-32) and deeply impressed her colleagues by her breadth of view, candour, and anxiety to modernise the conditions of hospital service while retaining its
AT
of
fine traditions. At the end of 1932 she was elected a member of the General Nursing Council for England and Wales, and in January of this year she was made, vice-chairman of the Council. Her retirement from hospital work is less to be regretted inasmuch as it will give her more leisure in the future for her activities on behalf of a rapidly developing
profession. 1 Indian Med. Gazette,
May, 1935,
p. 260.