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THE HEALTH OF MERCHANT SEAMEN.
1137
THE HEALTH OF MERCHANT SEAMEN.-MEASLES TWICE.
be resumed.
Annotations.
Incidentally,
this latter
point might well
have a bearing on the incidence of sepsis after childbirth. We commend Mr. Blacker’s exposition of the problems of contraception as worthy of careful study. He has made out a good case for the inclusion of a chapter on birth control in every manual of obstetrics, and it is unlikely that the can much longer be ignored in these works.
subject
TEACHING ON CONTRACEPTION IN MEDICAL SCHOOLS.
THE HEALTH OF MERCHANT SEAMEN. THE need for disentangling the medical from the racial and religious aspects of contraception is THE Conference of Port Sanitary Authorities, manifest to those who have attempted to follow the meeting at the Liverpool Congress of the Royal swings of the pendulum in the libel action, Sutherland Sanitary Institute in July, forwarded to the Council
Stopes, which has come finally to rest in the House of Lords after violent oscillations. The House, by a majority, allowed the appeal from a judgment of the Court of Appeal, the result being the restoration of the judgment of the Lord Chief Justice of England for the defendants in the original libel actionDr. Halliday Sutherland and his publishers and printers. Previous stages of this action have been recorded in THE LANCET (1923, i., 504 ; 1923, ii., 236), and we may have occasion to return to the consideration of the legal aspects. In the meanwhile, we would draw attention to the fact that the decision in this case has no bearing on the broad problems of birth control. The Lord Chancellor, in giving judgment, saw fit to exclude from the concern of the House "any question as to the desirability of the use of contraceptives, or as to the propriety of encouraging such use by the circulation of printed matter, or in Lord Wren bury, however, in his any other way." dissenting judgment, commented on the indirect issues involved. He said there were cases in which the health and happiness of the woman were impaired by too rapid successions of conception. There were cases in which the parents’ means did not allow of the proper maintenance, education, and advancement of There were more than a limited number of children. cases in which the mental or bodily health of the parents forbade or ought to forbid the procreation of defective children. Again, there were those who thought that in none of these cases ought control to be exercised. There were those who thought In both of these categories will be otherwise. It is unlikely that unifound eminent doctors. formity of thought could yet be present either on the main question whether contraception is ever justifiable or even, if the principle is accepted, on the technique least likely to do harm. For example, Prof. Louise Mcllroy was quoted as having stigmatised the check pessary as the most harmful method of which she had had experience ; other specialists could doubtless be found who would prefer it at least to coitus interruptus. The majority of young doctors would readily admit that the subject was not referred to in their curriculum, and that they are not competent to weigh the social and domestic consequences of enjoining complete abstinence in married people who for economic or medical reasons should not produce a large number of children, against the alternative of giving instruction in appropriate methods of v.
of the Institute two resolutions, the first complaining of the inadequate report on the deaths of seamen put forward this year by the Board of Trade, the second asking that the health of seamen should be the care of the Ministry of Health. These resolutions have now been considered by the Parliamentary Committee of the Institute, which has suggested to the Board of Trade that the classification of the deaths of seamen should be remodelled on the lines of that adopted by the Registrar-General for the use of local authorities, and has also decided to forward to the Board of Trade and to the Ministry of Health a resolution urging that the care of the health of seamen should be given in charge of the Ministry of Health. The Royal Sanitary Institute is doing good work in thus keeping before the official gaze the need for the supervision of the health of merchant seamen.
MEASLES TWICE. festal number of the Wieoaer Kliyiische Wochenschrift, issued at the time of the Innsbruck meeting of the Society of German Naturalists, Prof. Johann Loos writes about second attacks of measles. He is speaking from personal experience at the Children’s Clinic in the University of Innsbruck and from recent critical studies of the literature, and he answers the question submitted to him just in the same way as the author of snakes in Ireland was answered. There are, he says, no second attacks of measles. Prof. Loos does not go so far as to contend that no human being can get measles twice, but no convincing case of second attack has ever come before his own notice, and the three cases he relates, in which the opposite seemed to be true, are instructive in showing the kind of evidence on which honest but faulty conclusions are based. The first concerned a child brought to his department with undoubted measles and the statement that six months previously the child had had an attack in the clinic diagnosed as measles by one of Loos’s own assistants. The notes of the case when referred to were detailed enough to show that this attack had been one of rubella ; no second case of measles had followed on it. The second related to a teacher’s family of nine children, who all had uncomplicated measles about the same date and recovered. A year later the eight-year-old daughter came to the clinic with a typical attack of measles. The parents were at first confident that this child had suffered along with contraception. A timely demand for critical instruction on this the others, but on being pressed admitted to having and cognate points from the medical rather than the overlooked the fact that she had spent her summer emotional standpoint is made by Mr. C. P. Blacker in a holiday with friends at the time of the occurrence and had consequently escaped. The third case was survey of the subject published in Guy’s Hospital Gazette of Oct. 11th. The essential point of his letter that of an assistant in Loos’s clinic, who had what is a plea for the instruction of medical students in the looked very like measles at the time of an epidemic principles and technique of contraception. We our- in the clinic, although he had certainly had measles selves urged this course nearly four years ago1 on as a child, when his sister died of it. The absence of the same grounds-that the apathy of medical men Koplik spots satisfied Loos that the present attack was is largely responsible for the general dissemination of one of influenza associated with a drug rash, and he knowledge of birth control from an emotional rather was confirmed in this conviction by the fact that this than a medical angle. Nor is it only on this aspect assistant had been in contact with many cases of of sexuology that text-books are silent. Mr. Blacker measles in recent years without becoming infected. cites as untaught the period after conception during Prof. Loos supports his own convincing personal which sexual intercourse may properly be continued experience by citing nrmbers of authorities who agree .and the period after labour at which it may safely with him-Meissner, Bohn, Jurgens, Filatow, and others. Having critically examined the series of cases where his own experience might so readily have 1 THE LANCET, 1921, i., 677.
IN
a
THE HEALTH OF MERCHANT SEAMEN.-MEASLES TWICE.
be resumed.
Annotations.
Incidentally,
this latter
point might well
have a bearing on the incidence of sepsis after childbirth. We commend Mr. Blacker’s exposition of the problems of contraception as worthy of careful study. He has made out a good case for the inclusion of a chapter on birth control in every manual of obstetrics, and it is unlikely that the can much longer be ignored in these works.
subject
TEACHING ON CONTRACEPTION IN MEDICAL SCHOOLS.
THE HEALTH OF MERCHANT SEAMEN. THE need for disentangling the medical from the racial and religious aspects of contraception is THE Conference of Port Sanitary Authorities, manifest to those who have attempted to follow the meeting at the Liverpool Congress of the Royal swings of the pendulum in the libel action, Sutherland Sanitary Institute in July, forwarded to the Council
Stopes, which has come finally to rest in the House of Lords after violent oscillations. The House, by a majority, allowed the appeal from a judgment of the Court of Appeal, the result being the restoration of the judgment of the Lord Chief Justice of England for the defendants in the original libel actionDr. Halliday Sutherland and his publishers and printers. Previous stages of this action have been recorded in THE LANCET (1923, i., 504 ; 1923, ii., 236), and we may have occasion to return to the consideration of the legal aspects. In the meanwhile, we would draw attention to the fact that the decision in this case has no bearing on the broad problems of birth control. The Lord Chancellor, in giving judgment, saw fit to exclude from the concern of the House "any question as to the desirability of the use of contraceptives, or as to the propriety of encouraging such use by the circulation of printed matter, or in Lord Wren bury, however, in his any other way." dissenting judgment, commented on the indirect issues involved. He said there were cases in which the health and happiness of the woman were impaired by too rapid successions of conception. There were cases in which the parents’ means did not allow of the proper maintenance, education, and advancement of There were more than a limited number of children. cases in which the mental or bodily health of the parents forbade or ought to forbid the procreation of defective children. Again, there were those who thought that in none of these cases ought control to be exercised. There were those who thought In both of these categories will be otherwise. It is unlikely that unifound eminent doctors. formity of thought could yet be present either on the main question whether contraception is ever justifiable or even, if the principle is accepted, on the technique least likely to do harm. For example, Prof. Louise Mcllroy was quoted as having stigmatised the check pessary as the most harmful method of which she had had experience ; other specialists could doubtless be found who would prefer it at least to coitus interruptus. The majority of young doctors would readily admit that the subject was not referred to in their curriculum, and that they are not competent to weigh the social and domestic consequences of enjoining complete abstinence in married people who for economic or medical reasons should not produce a large number of children, against the alternative of giving instruction in appropriate methods of v.
of the Institute two resolutions, the first complaining of the inadequate report on the deaths of seamen put forward this year by the Board of Trade, the second asking that the health of seamen should be the care of the Ministry of Health. These resolutions have now been considered by the Parliamentary Committee of the Institute, which has suggested to the Board of Trade that the classification of the deaths of seamen should be remodelled on the lines of that adopted by the Registrar-General for the use of local authorities, and has also decided to forward to the Board of Trade and to the Ministry of Health a resolution urging that the care of the health of seamen should be given in charge of the Ministry of Health. The Royal Sanitary Institute is doing good work in thus keeping before the official gaze the need for the supervision of the health of merchant seamen.
MEASLES TWICE. festal number of the Wieoaer Kliyiische Wochenschrift, issued at the time of the Innsbruck meeting of the Society of German Naturalists, Prof. Johann Loos writes about second attacks of measles. He is speaking from personal experience at the Children’s Clinic in the University of Innsbruck and from recent critical studies of the literature, and he answers the question submitted to him just in the same way as the author of snakes in Ireland was answered. There are, he says, no second attacks of measles. Prof. Loos does not go so far as to contend that no human being can get measles twice, but no convincing case of second attack has ever come before his own notice, and the three cases he relates, in which the opposite seemed to be true, are instructive in showing the kind of evidence on which honest but faulty conclusions are based. The first concerned a child brought to his department with undoubted measles and the statement that six months previously the child had had an attack in the clinic diagnosed as measles by one of Loos’s own assistants. The notes of the case when referred to were detailed enough to show that this attack had been one of rubella ; no second case of measles had followed on it. The second related to a teacher’s family of nine children, who all had uncomplicated measles about the same date and recovered. A year later the eight-year-old daughter came to the clinic with a typical attack of measles. The parents were at first confident that this child had suffered along with contraception. A timely demand for critical instruction on this the others, but on being pressed admitted to having and cognate points from the medical rather than the overlooked the fact that she had spent her summer emotional standpoint is made by Mr. C. P. Blacker in a holiday with friends at the time of the occurrence and had consequently escaped. The third case was survey of the subject published in Guy’s Hospital Gazette of Oct. 11th. The essential point of his letter that of an assistant in Loos’s clinic, who had what is a plea for the instruction of medical students in the looked very like measles at the time of an epidemic principles and technique of contraception. We our- in the clinic, although he had certainly had measles selves urged this course nearly four years ago1 on as a child, when his sister died of it. The absence of the same grounds-that the apathy of medical men Koplik spots satisfied Loos that the present attack was is largely responsible for the general dissemination of one of influenza associated with a drug rash, and he knowledge of birth control from an emotional rather was confirmed in this conviction by the fact that this than a medical angle. Nor is it only on this aspect assistant had been in contact with many cases of of sexuology that text-books are silent. Mr. Blacker measles in recent years without becoming infected. cites as untaught the period after conception during Prof. Loos supports his own convincing personal which sexual intercourse may properly be continued experience by citing nrmbers of authorities who agree .and the period after labour at which it may safely with him-Meissner, Bohn, Jurgens, Filatow, and others. Having critically examined the series of cases where his own experience might so readily have 1 THE LANCET, 1921, i., 677.
IN
a