- Email: [email protected]
THE SOUTHWARK UNION AND GUY'S HOSPITAL: THE CASE OF LOUISA GOODYEAR.
1046
"CANCER CURES"AND OTHER QUACK REMEDIES. into the belief that this nostrum will cure them of their disease is a cruel thing. The cruelty is perhaps increased by the proprietor having the impudence to charge
motorists would have us believe, mere idle resentment that makes the motor-car unpopular. The danger to horse and to foot passengers, the noise, and the smell are all hard to bear, though presumably the law can
some
mitigate such of these nuisances knowledge will leave to be dealt
as
advancing scientific.
every
with. There is But the reason to believe that this residuum will be small. dust question is very serious. Along miles and miles of our roads there are beautiful houses and gardens rendered well-nigh uninhabitable owing to the clouds of dust that are thrown up by the wheels of heavy, fast-driven motors. The unfortunate inhabitants of such districts may well ask whether the references to the Royal Commission really go far enough.
THE
SOUTHWARK UNION AND GUY’S PITAL: THE CASE OF LOUISA GOODYEAR.
HOS-
last an unhappy woman, named Louisa Goodadmission to Guy’s Hospital in circumrefused year, stances which excited considerable comment in the press. That the condemnation of the authorities of Guy’s Hospital was quite unjust now appears very plainly from the correspondence which has taken place between the Southwark union and the treasurer of Guy’s Hospital and we trust "CANCER CURES" AND OTHER QUACK that those who, from lack of proper information, passed REMEDIES. sentence upon the hospital will revise their opinions THE declarations of quacks have recently been made the publicly in the light othe facts. The story is as follows. subject of wholesome statements by His Majesty’s judges. Louisa Goodyear, who W1.Ssuffering from chronic heart At Edinburgh Lord Ardwall stigmatised "Bile Beans," disease and who had been an in-patient at Guy’s Hospital which were puffed as being an ancient Australian medicine, during February, March, and the first three weeks of as a business built up upon " fraud, impudence, and adverApril, came up on July llth for readmission when there tisement," and as we mentioned last week his honour Judge was no bed vacant. The house surgeon, recognising her Mulholland at the Hanley county court pointed out that serious condition, wrote her a letter of recommendation every word on the label of "Dr. Astbury’s Pure Herbal to the Southwark infirmary. She was taken in a cab, at Pills " was untrue. From South Africa, that happy hunting the expense of the hospital, to the relieving officer and was. ground of quacks, we have just received a letter from admitted to the St. George’s workhouse by the district a correspondent who says that he is sending us a sample medical officer. There she died 18 days later. On of a so-called cancer cure. He goes on : "It must have a August llth the clerk to the guardians of the poor of very large sale in this country and is owned by a Mrs. van Southwark wrote to the authorities of Guy’s Hospital Niekerk and evidently made up for her by Heynes, Mathews, asking why the case was sent away from the hospital and and Co., of Capetown. The enclosed was sold to me for one referred to the Southwark infirmary which is situated at guinea, the usual price. It has a terribly high reputa- East Dulwich-grove (some four miles distant from the tion amongst the Dutch, even the most highly educated, hospital). This letter covered reports from the district I have just seen a case medical officers, Dr. J. S. Hill and Dr. G. A. Paton, showsuch as ministers, lawyers, &c. of its application in which it was exfoliating can- ing that the patient was received into the St. George’s There workhouse, which has no infirmary block attached to it, cerous pieces from the lower end of the femur. the chest and because she was considered in so critical a condition that to was evidence of secondary deposits in possibly in the liver, so that amputation was out of the transport her further might have been fatal. The letter also question and the patient’s life was being sacrificed to this included the recommendations of the St. George’s relief awful nostrum." The "remedy"" which our correspondent committee that "the Authorities of Guy’s Hospital be reinclosed was labeled Aesiab Cancer Cure" and it was quired to impress upon their Medical Staff that St. George’s contained in a small glass vessel of a capacity of about workhouse is not an infirmary, the infirmary of the Union three drachms. We submitted it to chemical analysis with being at Dulwich, four miles away," and that "acopy of the following result : tartar emetic, 41’ 0 per cent. ; calcium the whole of the correspondence in this case be forwarded carbonate, 9’ 6 per cent. ; and fat, 49 ’4 per cent. Wrapped to the committee of management of the Hospital Sunday round the bottle was a circular in Dutch and incorrect Fund and the King Edward’s Hospital Fund for London.’ English printed on yellow paper, in which after the method To this communication Mr. Cosmo Bonsor has just made a of applying the stuff in cancer has been described we reply of so satisfactory a nature that we doubt if the are told that: " The ultimate cure is sure and certain if the guardians will carry out the recommendation that the whole patient will unremittingly apply the treatment and strictly correspondence should be sent to the two Hospital Funds. in accord with these directions ; it causes no inconvenience Mr. Bonsor points out that the serious nature of the case beyond the requisite attention and is so far above every was recognised from the first, as Louisa Goodyear was an other known or thought-of treatment for this painful disease, old in-patient of the hospital ; that steps were at once doing away as it does with the dreadful knife of a surgical taken by the medical officer of the hospital to get her the operation-which latter, indeed, seldom effects a complete benefits of institutional treatment when it was found that cure-while theAesiab’ will draw the cancerous poison there was not a single bed available in Guy’s Hospital; entirely out of the system." This statement is signed and that the absence of infirmary accommodation within "A. E. van Niekerk (born Sehabort), Proprietor." To this the limits of the Southwark union reflects discredit statement the words of Lord Ardwall above quoted may be upon the Southwark guardians, of whom he says: " It well applied. Tartar emetic or antimonium tartaratum is, is this failure on their part to equip a proper out-post as is well known. a powerful irritant and when applied to hospital (reception station) within their boundaries which is the skin in the form of ointment it produces a pustular the real cause of the trouble that occurs from time to time ; eruption. It may well, therefore, as our correspondent says, and to place blame upon Guy’s Hospital is to ignore exfoliate cancerous pieces but it would ulcerate healthy responsibilities which, when the attention of the ratepayers tissues in the same way. We observe that Mrs. van Niekerk: is once aroused, cannot long be disregarded. To quote from says : " If no wound had appeared before the salve will draw Dr. Paton’s report, Louisa Goodyear if sent to the infirmary a wound in about three days." This statement as far as we would very likely have died on the journey. No more can see is the only fragment of truth in the whole circular. serious charge could well be made against the Poor-law That unfortunate sufferers from cancer should be deludedl authorities of Southwark. It is as much to say that the sick
IN
July was
,
,
,
SUMMER TEMPERATURES IN THE BRITISH ISLANDS.
1047
uuc 1B UC poor must remain in their miserable homes or must put up the at the of resorts in about the time of their mortal need so little some seaside if behind with workhouse treatment they are too ill to bear transference to an infirmary ’four same latitude. The chief difference in the rainfall consisted iles distant."’ Mr. Bonsor concludes by hoping that the not so much in the aggregate amounts, although they whole situation will attract the immediate attention of the ,vaxied considerably, but in the relative dryness as shown in Southwark guardians and of the Local Government Board to the number of days with rain (0’ 01 inch or more) along the whom, he promises, a copy of the correspondence will be east coast of England and at Harrogate. The wettest spot sent. He has evidently taken pains to suit his answer both in the total fall and in the number of days was exactly to the communication which he had received. Llangammarch Wells and the driest was Scarborough.
June, July, and August,
THE GOLDSMITHS’ COLLEGE. WHEN the Goldsmiths’ Institute at New Cross for the technical instruction of the people was closed the richest of the City companies offered to present the buildings and the recreation grounds to the University of London with an endowment of .S5000 per annum for five years and an inaugural present of R5000. The Senate of the University speedily settled upon a satisfactory scheme for the management of the institution, the work of which will comprise classes in chemistry, physics, and engineering, art classes, and classes in domestic affairs for women, and last week the Goldsmiths’ College was opened by Lord Rosebery as Chancellor of the University of London. We welcome an addition like the Goldsmiths’ College to the resources of the University of London, for we regard the welfare of the University as of the first importance to medical men. It is to the University of London that the London medical student naturally looks for fair opportunities to obtain a medical degree, and that these opportunities will be forthcoming is, we venture to hope, certain as soon as the University can afford to provide them. Any addition to’ the wealth and influence of the University is a step forward towards the time when the education of the London medical student will fall naturally into the hands of the medical faculty of the University and when a University degree will be the natural goal.
*
-
SUMMER TEMPERATURES IN THE ISLANDS.
1905.
Sunshine recorded at Westminster.
BRITISH
THE following table gives the summary of temperature,
"THE OPERABILITY OF BRAIN TUMOURS."
Dr. Walton and Dr. W. E. l’aulor Hoston made a comon the above subject to a recent meeting of the at certain munication sunshine and representative ) rainfall, bright stations within Great Britain and the Channel Islands forAmerican Neurological Association and their paper appears of Nervous and Mental Disease for August, June, July, and August of the present year compiled fromin the It based or the is 1905. observations published daily weekly by Meteorological upon record, and specimens placed at the Office. A similar table appeared last year in THE LANCET. writers’ disposal, apart from a few which were their own Nearly every place was warmer than during the correspond- records, the total cases studied being 221. To these were ing period of 1904, although the summer just elapsed had no added cases recorded by Blackburn in a recent report of apell of extremely hot weather and the month of August was necropsies in instances of intracranial growth, compiled almost everywhere noted for its defect of warmth. August, from the records of Brain since the foundation of that too, was so dull and wet that at the majority of the resorts journal, and also cases recorded by Knapp, bringing up the sunshine for the three months was much less, and the the total number of necropsies in which such growths aggregate rainfall much more, than during the preceding existed to 424. These cases the writers divide into summer. Comparing the various stations with each other three classes-operable, inoperable, and doubtful. The it is seen that London was the warmest during the day first designation is applied to those cases in which and that the spots so geographically opposed as Great lasting relief might be expected from operation, the Yarmouth and Jersey had the warmest nights. The place tumour being primary, accessible, well defined, and with the coldest nights was not the most northern but susceptible of removal without cutting into brain tissue. Llangammarch Wells, where, owing to the topography of the Such tumours spring in the great majority of instances surrounding country, terrestrial radiation after sunset is from the dura mater. Into the inoperable class fall very great. As is nearly always the case the Scilly Isles those cases in which the tumour involves the deeper experienced the most equable climate, having the very smallstructures of the brain, as well as most cases of multiple range of 8Q between the average day and the averagegrowths and of widespread metastasis. The doubtful class night, but, contrary to what would appear probable, the: includes tumours-gliomata and non-encapsulated sarcomata most equable station after those little islands was Great; are specifically mentioned-at or near the surface of the brain Yarmouth and not the resorts on the south-west coast orin accessible regions, many subtentorial tumours, and cysts ; Jersey. The duration of sunshine shows some ratherrin the last-mentioned nothing beyond evacuation can be accomremarkable variations ; Torquay had 58 hours more thani plished. Applying this classification to the cases investiPlymouth, 63 hours less than Jersey, and between 80) gated Dr. Walton and Dr. Paul find that no more than 3’ 3 amd 90 hours less than Harrogate, Scarborough, and 1 par 6e,nt. were operable and 8 per cent. were doubtful. The Blackpool. Westminster, Aberdeen, and Plymouth were thee former percentage is practically the same as Seidel’s 3 per
G. L.
Journal
"CANCER CURES"AND OTHER QUACK REMEDIES. into the belief that this nostrum will cure them of their disease is a cruel thing. The cruelty is perhaps increased by the proprietor having the impudence to charge
motorists would have us believe, mere idle resentment that makes the motor-car unpopular. The danger to horse and to foot passengers, the noise, and the smell are all hard to bear, though presumably the law can
some
mitigate such of these nuisances knowledge will leave to be dealt
as
advancing scientific.
every
with. There is But the reason to believe that this residuum will be small. dust question is very serious. Along miles and miles of our roads there are beautiful houses and gardens rendered well-nigh uninhabitable owing to the clouds of dust that are thrown up by the wheels of heavy, fast-driven motors. The unfortunate inhabitants of such districts may well ask whether the references to the Royal Commission really go far enough.
THE
SOUTHWARK UNION AND GUY’S PITAL: THE CASE OF LOUISA GOODYEAR.
HOS-
last an unhappy woman, named Louisa Goodadmission to Guy’s Hospital in circumrefused year, stances which excited considerable comment in the press. That the condemnation of the authorities of Guy’s Hospital was quite unjust now appears very plainly from the correspondence which has taken place between the Southwark union and the treasurer of Guy’s Hospital and we trust "CANCER CURES" AND OTHER QUACK that those who, from lack of proper information, passed REMEDIES. sentence upon the hospital will revise their opinions THE declarations of quacks have recently been made the publicly in the light othe facts. The story is as follows. subject of wholesome statements by His Majesty’s judges. Louisa Goodyear, who W1.Ssuffering from chronic heart At Edinburgh Lord Ardwall stigmatised "Bile Beans," disease and who had been an in-patient at Guy’s Hospital which were puffed as being an ancient Australian medicine, during February, March, and the first three weeks of as a business built up upon " fraud, impudence, and adverApril, came up on July llth for readmission when there tisement," and as we mentioned last week his honour Judge was no bed vacant. The house surgeon, recognising her Mulholland at the Hanley county court pointed out that serious condition, wrote her a letter of recommendation every word on the label of "Dr. Astbury’s Pure Herbal to the Southwark infirmary. She was taken in a cab, at Pills " was untrue. From South Africa, that happy hunting the expense of the hospital, to the relieving officer and was. ground of quacks, we have just received a letter from admitted to the St. George’s workhouse by the district a correspondent who says that he is sending us a sample medical officer. There she died 18 days later. On of a so-called cancer cure. He goes on : "It must have a August llth the clerk to the guardians of the poor of very large sale in this country and is owned by a Mrs. van Southwark wrote to the authorities of Guy’s Hospital Niekerk and evidently made up for her by Heynes, Mathews, asking why the case was sent away from the hospital and and Co., of Capetown. The enclosed was sold to me for one referred to the Southwark infirmary which is situated at guinea, the usual price. It has a terribly high reputa- East Dulwich-grove (some four miles distant from the tion amongst the Dutch, even the most highly educated, hospital). This letter covered reports from the district I have just seen a case medical officers, Dr. J. S. Hill and Dr. G. A. Paton, showsuch as ministers, lawyers, &c. of its application in which it was exfoliating can- ing that the patient was received into the St. George’s There workhouse, which has no infirmary block attached to it, cerous pieces from the lower end of the femur. the chest and because she was considered in so critical a condition that to was evidence of secondary deposits in possibly in the liver, so that amputation was out of the transport her further might have been fatal. The letter also question and the patient’s life was being sacrificed to this included the recommendations of the St. George’s relief awful nostrum." The "remedy"" which our correspondent committee that "the Authorities of Guy’s Hospital be reinclosed was labeled Aesiab Cancer Cure" and it was quired to impress upon their Medical Staff that St. George’s contained in a small glass vessel of a capacity of about workhouse is not an infirmary, the infirmary of the Union three drachms. We submitted it to chemical analysis with being at Dulwich, four miles away," and that "acopy of the following result : tartar emetic, 41’ 0 per cent. ; calcium the whole of the correspondence in this case be forwarded carbonate, 9’ 6 per cent. ; and fat, 49 ’4 per cent. Wrapped to the committee of management of the Hospital Sunday round the bottle was a circular in Dutch and incorrect Fund and the King Edward’s Hospital Fund for London.’ English printed on yellow paper, in which after the method To this communication Mr. Cosmo Bonsor has just made a of applying the stuff in cancer has been described we reply of so satisfactory a nature that we doubt if the are told that: " The ultimate cure is sure and certain if the guardians will carry out the recommendation that the whole patient will unremittingly apply the treatment and strictly correspondence should be sent to the two Hospital Funds. in accord with these directions ; it causes no inconvenience Mr. Bonsor points out that the serious nature of the case beyond the requisite attention and is so far above every was recognised from the first, as Louisa Goodyear was an other known or thought-of treatment for this painful disease, old in-patient of the hospital ; that steps were at once doing away as it does with the dreadful knife of a surgical taken by the medical officer of the hospital to get her the operation-which latter, indeed, seldom effects a complete benefits of institutional treatment when it was found that cure-while theAesiab’ will draw the cancerous poison there was not a single bed available in Guy’s Hospital; entirely out of the system." This statement is signed and that the absence of infirmary accommodation within "A. E. van Niekerk (born Sehabort), Proprietor." To this the limits of the Southwark union reflects discredit statement the words of Lord Ardwall above quoted may be upon the Southwark guardians, of whom he says: " It well applied. Tartar emetic or antimonium tartaratum is, is this failure on their part to equip a proper out-post as is well known. a powerful irritant and when applied to hospital (reception station) within their boundaries which is the skin in the form of ointment it produces a pustular the real cause of the trouble that occurs from time to time ; eruption. It may well, therefore, as our correspondent says, and to place blame upon Guy’s Hospital is to ignore exfoliate cancerous pieces but it would ulcerate healthy responsibilities which, when the attention of the ratepayers tissues in the same way. We observe that Mrs. van Niekerk: is once aroused, cannot long be disregarded. To quote from says : " If no wound had appeared before the salve will draw Dr. Paton’s report, Louisa Goodyear if sent to the infirmary a wound in about three days." This statement as far as we would very likely have died on the journey. No more can see is the only fragment of truth in the whole circular. serious charge could well be made against the Poor-law That unfortunate sufferers from cancer should be deludedl authorities of Southwark. It is as much to say that the sick
IN
July was
,
,
,
SUMMER TEMPERATURES IN THE BRITISH ISLANDS.
1047
uuc 1B UC poor must remain in their miserable homes or must put up the at the of resorts in about the time of their mortal need so little some seaside if behind with workhouse treatment they are too ill to bear transference to an infirmary ’four same latitude. The chief difference in the rainfall consisted iles distant."’ Mr. Bonsor concludes by hoping that the not so much in the aggregate amounts, although they whole situation will attract the immediate attention of the ,vaxied considerably, but in the relative dryness as shown in Southwark guardians and of the Local Government Board to the number of days with rain (0’ 01 inch or more) along the whom, he promises, a copy of the correspondence will be east coast of England and at Harrogate. The wettest spot sent. He has evidently taken pains to suit his answer both in the total fall and in the number of days was exactly to the communication which he had received. Llangammarch Wells and the driest was Scarborough.
June, July, and August,
THE GOLDSMITHS’ COLLEGE. WHEN the Goldsmiths’ Institute at New Cross for the technical instruction of the people was closed the richest of the City companies offered to present the buildings and the recreation grounds to the University of London with an endowment of .S5000 per annum for five years and an inaugural present of R5000. The Senate of the University speedily settled upon a satisfactory scheme for the management of the institution, the work of which will comprise classes in chemistry, physics, and engineering, art classes, and classes in domestic affairs for women, and last week the Goldsmiths’ College was opened by Lord Rosebery as Chancellor of the University of London. We welcome an addition like the Goldsmiths’ College to the resources of the University of London, for we regard the welfare of the University as of the first importance to medical men. It is to the University of London that the London medical student naturally looks for fair opportunities to obtain a medical degree, and that these opportunities will be forthcoming is, we venture to hope, certain as soon as the University can afford to provide them. Any addition to’ the wealth and influence of the University is a step forward towards the time when the education of the London medical student will fall naturally into the hands of the medical faculty of the University and when a University degree will be the natural goal.
*
-
SUMMER TEMPERATURES IN THE ISLANDS.
1905.
Sunshine recorded at Westminster.
BRITISH
THE following table gives the summary of temperature,
"THE OPERABILITY OF BRAIN TUMOURS."
Dr. Walton and Dr. W. E. l’aulor Hoston made a comon the above subject to a recent meeting of the at certain munication sunshine and representative ) rainfall, bright stations within Great Britain and the Channel Islands forAmerican Neurological Association and their paper appears of Nervous and Mental Disease for August, June, July, and August of the present year compiled fromin the It based or the is 1905. observations published daily weekly by Meteorological upon record, and specimens placed at the Office. A similar table appeared last year in THE LANCET. writers’ disposal, apart from a few which were their own Nearly every place was warmer than during the correspond- records, the total cases studied being 221. To these were ing period of 1904, although the summer just elapsed had no added cases recorded by Blackburn in a recent report of apell of extremely hot weather and the month of August was necropsies in instances of intracranial growth, compiled almost everywhere noted for its defect of warmth. August, from the records of Brain since the foundation of that too, was so dull and wet that at the majority of the resorts journal, and also cases recorded by Knapp, bringing up the sunshine for the three months was much less, and the the total number of necropsies in which such growths aggregate rainfall much more, than during the preceding existed to 424. These cases the writers divide into summer. Comparing the various stations with each other three classes-operable, inoperable, and doubtful. The it is seen that London was the warmest during the day first designation is applied to those cases in which and that the spots so geographically opposed as Great lasting relief might be expected from operation, the Yarmouth and Jersey had the warmest nights. The place tumour being primary, accessible, well defined, and with the coldest nights was not the most northern but susceptible of removal without cutting into brain tissue. Llangammarch Wells, where, owing to the topography of the Such tumours spring in the great majority of instances surrounding country, terrestrial radiation after sunset is from the dura mater. Into the inoperable class fall very great. As is nearly always the case the Scilly Isles those cases in which the tumour involves the deeper experienced the most equable climate, having the very smallstructures of the brain, as well as most cases of multiple range of 8Q between the average day and the averagegrowths and of widespread metastasis. The doubtful class night, but, contrary to what would appear probable, the: includes tumours-gliomata and non-encapsulated sarcomata most equable station after those little islands was Great; are specifically mentioned-at or near the surface of the brain Yarmouth and not the resorts on the south-west coast orin accessible regions, many subtentorial tumours, and cysts ; Jersey. The duration of sunshine shows some ratherrin the last-mentioned nothing beyond evacuation can be accomremarkable variations ; Torquay had 58 hours more thani plished. Applying this classification to the cases investiPlymouth, 63 hours less than Jersey, and between 80) gated Dr. Walton and Dr. Paul find that no more than 3’ 3 amd 90 hours less than Harrogate, Scarborough, and 1 par 6e,nt. were operable and 8 per cent. were doubtful. The Blackpool. Westminster, Aberdeen, and Plymouth were thee former percentage is practically the same as Seidel’s 3 per
G. L.
Journal