719
journev back to the surgeons and hospitals. comfort in less than three and a half days, and we Larrey saw that this delay meant death to many. learn that the visitor arriving at Christmas will find Using as his pattern the light guns or artillerie volante, flowers which we associate with spring and early he devised amb1tlallces volantes, small wagons with summer blooming in full profusion and occurring large springs and stuffed mattresses, drawn by two promiscuously with the numerous conspicuous and horses (for two lying patients or four sitting) or fragrant plants indigenous to Madeira, which in this four horses (four lying or eight sitting). These could country decorate glass-houses or make but a transient even come up to the firing-line, and accompany appearance in the open. Mid-winter vegetables concavalry, and they carried medical staff and dressings tinue their autumnal yield through December and two the line. The wounded were now collected, dressed, January, and green peas and cauliflowers have become .and taken at once in ambulances to the surgeon at abundant. Speaking from the botanical point of view, what we would call the main dressing station ; they he notices that in general character the flora of Madeira confirms the rule relating to an insular collection, were operated on very early, and then conveyed .quickly to hospitals three to ten miles in the rear, showing many orders with one genus only, and genera where they were all in bed within 24 hours, even after with a solitary species. Analysis of the comprehensive the great battle of Austerlitz. There was less suffering, flora of the island has been due to the descriptive and he discovered, in rapid evacuation than in confine- identifying work of British botanists, and a comment ment in crowded hospitals. Larrey also improved on the profusion of specimens as well as upon the easy treatment, recommending that the skin round wounds circumstances of growth and reproduction is furnished should be kept very clean, that salt and chlorinated by a semi-apologetic phrase in which Dr. Grabham ,soda solutions should be used instead of ointments confesses that his plan for taking the garden flowers in the treatment of wounds, and that dressings should in monthly sequence has been baffled by " the be done as rarely as possible. His chief insistence exercise of a perverse exuberance in the genera, and a tendency to transgress all limits and break forth was on the urgency of amputation where it was it and is now clear this required, why promptness anew in unseasonable revivals." would prevent tetanus, as he asserted. Resections, he considered, should be done instead of amputations wherever possible. He found blood-letting uniformly CHINA MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. disastrous, and blisters of no avail-the raw surface, IN spite of the political situation the China Medical moreover, being liable to moist gangrene-and insisted, held its eighteenth Biennial Conference Hippocrates notwithstanding, that wounded men Association at the of this month in Peking. Since the beginning a diet. much beloved by require generous Larrey was ’the soldiers, and treated French and enemy wounded last of these conferences the Association has dropped the word Missionary from its title so as to become .equally ; it is said that this practice saved him when more representativeof medical interests in China, and he was captured by the Germans after Waterloo, and sentenced to be shot. Recognised by a the broadened basis has brought an increase of memberGerman doctor, he was taken to headquarters and ship. Those who administer its affairs are doing good released by Blucher whose wounded son he once had work under considerable difficulties, and during the saved. After Austerlitz Napoleon had made him past year or so these have been increased by the Baron Larrey, giving him a pension of
"
"
"
"
"
THE GARDENS OF MADEIRA.1 an Grabham
of the Association the various medical societies of China haveformed a joint council which is working for public health, and the courageous way in which the immense sanitary problems of that country are thus being faced makes it reasonable to hope for important if gradual reform.
interesting little publication, Dr. Michael the mentality of the British tourist as receptive and intelligent even if uninstructed, and proceeds in friendly vein to identify for him the more prominent features in the Madeira flora, if with special reference to gardens still with wide notice of general ON SUSPICION OF RABIES. botany. The book is certainly an invitation at this OUR medico-legalcorrespondent on page 72,t tells period of the year, for those who can accomplish such charming plans, to sojourn in Madeira round about of a dog which was clubbed to death a fortnight ago Christmas time. When shortening days here give at Balham on a suspicion of iabies and he queries whether police otiicers are properly instructed to deal a foreboding of the approach of winter many who know the rigors ahead, with which they can cope only with such an occasion. The larger question arises assumes
miserably. will feel tempted to resort to
an island where " Spring is perpetual and Summer occur-s in alien months.’’ Dr. Grabham reminds those in charge of such patients that the transit from winter to summer conditions can now be made with complete 1
The Garden Interests of Madeira.
By Michael Comport
Grabham, M.D., LL.D., Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.
London : Printed by William 1926. 5s.
Clowes
whether it is now reasonable for anyone in this country to suspect an animal of having rabies. With the exception of Australia this infectious disorder of animals is to be found in all parts of the world, although, as we are reminded in the most recent monograph1 on the subject, the number of cases
and
Sons, Limited.
1 Lyssa bei Mensch und Tier. By Prof. Dr. R. Kraus, Dr. med. vet. F. Gerlach. and Dr. F. Schweinburg. Berlin and Vienna: Urban and Schwarzenberg. Pp. 464. M.30.