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THE TREATMENT OF " MANIA (?).
1176
quantity the coroner and jury seem knowing that the amount used is of less importance than the method of using, and that a good administrator may successfully anassthetise a patient in the same time that a bad one may cause a fatality, although the latter may have used only a fraction of the quantity employed by the former. I am, Sir, yours faithfully,
happened
to be
a
small
satisfied, and vice versti,
April llth,
1908.
not
J. D. MORTIMER.
HUMANE SLAUGHTERING OF ANIMALS. To the Editor of THE LANCET. SIR,-In the excellent article on this subject in your issue
of March 28th I think the description of the Chatham abattoir is somewhat misleading. It is stated "at Chatham the animals are brought to a place just outside the walls of the great hall, here they are felled and then only is a sliding door opened and with the aid of ropes and pulleys the carcass is promptly drawn into the large hall." The method of slaughtering adopted at Chatham is, however, different from this description. The animals are brought into the waiting pens, then taken into the slaughter hall, where they are felled and bled, the carcasses are then dragged into the large meat-dressing room and afterwards conveyed on overhead After each operation the runners to the cooling room. slaughter hall is cleansed from blood and other animals brought in from the waiting pens. This arrangement entirely conforms to the recommendations of the Commissioners on Humane Slaughtering. The slaughter hall is divided into four slaughter pens by dwarf brick walls, thus preventing any animal from seeing another being killed, or from the sight or smell of blood. These walls only extend to half the width of the court, allowing ample space for circulation and the veterinary inspectors, whilst it also allows the superintendent’s office to be placed in such a position that this official can have full command over the slaughter hall, practically without leaving his office. I am, Sir, yours faithfully, R. STEPHEN AYLING F.R.I.B.A. Dartmouth-street, Westminster, S.W., April 1st, 1908.
OSCILLATORY CURRENT CAUTERY. To the Editor of THE LANCET. SIR,-In the Daily Telegrcrph of April 4th appears
a com-
munication from its Paris correspondent upon the experiments now being carried out on wireless telephony at the Eiffel Tower by Dr. Lee de Forest. The final paragraph of the communication is of very great interest to the medical profession generally, so it may be as well to quote the salient
points :Incidentally Mr. de Forest has made what may be considered a new discovery. The current from his apparatus had burnt his hands, and he at
concluded that this would be a very simple way of with electricity and without pain. He made some demonstrations at the Saint Louis Hospital in the presence of Dr. Pozzi and other well-known surgeons, who, he says, were quite enthusiastic once
cauterising wounds
the process of healing. At first nothing occurred but a very slight moisture or exudation of clear lymph. In about ten days the circumference was slightly raised and elastic and in a little more than a fortnight the exuded lymph formed a scab. At the end of rather more than five weeks the scab fell off and left a smooth skin beneath ; and now, at the end of 15 months, it is very difficult to see where the lesion was produced. I did not immediately rush off to demonstrate this phenomenon, but with British phlegm have been busying myself in steadily perfecting the method, so that it may be used with the greatest effect and with the greatest safety to the patient. The apparatus is now complete. I do not wish for a moment to detract from the merit of Dr. de Forest’s discovery of this phenomenon, which is absolutely original and independent of mine, but I do wish to show that electro-therapeutics in England maintain their place in the front rank and that this so-called new discovery in Paris was anticipated in England at least 15 months previous to the present announcement. I am, Sir, yours faithfully, HORACE MANDERS, M.D. Brux. Harley-street, W., April 6th, 1908.
THE TREATMENT OF " MANIA
(?).
To the Editor of THE LANCET. SIR,-Dr. Robert Jones’s able and thoughtful letter in your last week’s edition on this topic must, I feel sure, be welcomed by everyone interested in the treatment of mental disease. More especially must this be the case when it is recognised that after 30 years’ experience as a medical attendant in huge asylums for the insane he is so definitely of opinion that "the proper treatment of insanity must be the study of each case upon its merits." This is the gospel I have preached during a period of 35 years’ experience of insanity, and that experience makes me more and more impressed with the stern necessity for an intimate study of the temperament, character, and habits of each patient if a successful issue of one’s treatment is to be hoped for. Pathological research may some day help us and guide us in our treatment I admit, but in my humble opinion never so much as careful individual clinical study. Hard and fast rules as to rest, change, drugs, diet, &c., are impossible, and the idea that a physician can in half an hour’s consultation map out a definite line of successful treatment in any case of mental disorder is to my mind quite fallacious. I am the greatest believer in "the influence of one mind upon another, whereby qualities such as insight, tact, common sense, inspired by a feeling of brotherhood and sympathy " are made so valuable, but such influence must be the outcome of knowledge of the character, the temperament, and the absolute workings of the mind of your patient. To obtain this knowledge individual attention is necessary, and how this can be gained in the huge asylums of to-day passes my comprehension. The study of the evolution of
delusion in many recent cases of insanity is an individual one, and the value of such study cannot be over-estimated. Dr. Henry Maudsley, in making his munificent offer to the over his discovery. London County Council, has emphasised all these facts, and in in are not the least indebted to Now, we, England, either France or America for this discovery, insomuch as it it is to be sincerely hoped that when the House of Commons has sufficient time to discuss the serious question of the was anticipated in England as far back as December, 1906, present legalised treatment of insanity it will do all in was with continuous when I oscillations of experimenting its to give facilities for the early and individual power electricity with a view to their therapeutic application. I treatment of mental disease. the soon found whenever retardation was due more that, very I am, Sir, to the inductance of the shunt circuit than the capacity LIONEL A. WEATHERLY, M.D. Aberd. thereof, any fingering of the solenoid, constituting the 1908. Bournemouth, April 12th, in the smell of resulted burnt flesh inductance, invariably and subsequent destruction of the epidermis of the fingers OPEN WINDOWS AND ADENOIDS. implicated, and this without any pain at the moment of To the Editor of THE LANCET. contact. It occurred to me that, in this phenomenon, we have a means of rapidly and practically painlessly destroying SIR,-In one of your annotations last week attention was malignant growths, and nasvi, situated in spots which are drawn to Professor William Thomson’s observations with inaccessible to other applications of electric or radio-active regard to cold and damp air. His researches appear to me measures, such places, for instance, as the inner canthus of to corroborate my contention that the method of ventilating the eye. rooms by keeping the windows open on cold and damp night? In order to ascertain the length of time in which such a is a serious error. For among other things he points out destruction of tissue would be repaired and in order to that dried and heated air has a much more powerful oxidising give some guide by which we might forecast a cure, on influence on the blood than cold and damp air. His observaDec. 28th, 1906, I submitted the first metacarpo-phalangeal tions should, I think, be considered by those who on a priori knuckle of my right hand for a few seconds to the fat, hot grounds believe that open windows in cold and damp weather spark from the inductance solenoid. At once and absolutely can have nothing to do with adenoids, unless it be in the without pain a small hole was drilled clean through the skin. way of preventing them. If the various otter arguments There was no eschar, as in an ordinary burn, but a simple and figures which I brought forward should not be considered circular tunnel as if of a drill through steel. I protected the sufficient to establish the fact that children brought up spot by simply covering it from the air and daily watched on the open window principle suffer much more frequently
yours faithfully,
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...
quantity the coroner and jury seem knowing that the amount used is of less importance than the method of using, and that a good administrator may successfully anassthetise a patient in the same time that a bad one may cause a fatality, although the latter may have used only a fraction of the quantity employed by the former. I am, Sir, yours faithfully,
happened
to be
a
small
satisfied, and vice versti,
April llth,
1908.
not
J. D. MORTIMER.
HUMANE SLAUGHTERING OF ANIMALS. To the Editor of THE LANCET. SIR,-In the excellent article on this subject in your issue
of March 28th I think the description of the Chatham abattoir is somewhat misleading. It is stated "at Chatham the animals are brought to a place just outside the walls of the great hall, here they are felled and then only is a sliding door opened and with the aid of ropes and pulleys the carcass is promptly drawn into the large hall." The method of slaughtering adopted at Chatham is, however, different from this description. The animals are brought into the waiting pens, then taken into the slaughter hall, where they are felled and bled, the carcasses are then dragged into the large meat-dressing room and afterwards conveyed on overhead After each operation the runners to the cooling room. slaughter hall is cleansed from blood and other animals brought in from the waiting pens. This arrangement entirely conforms to the recommendations of the Commissioners on Humane Slaughtering. The slaughter hall is divided into four slaughter pens by dwarf brick walls, thus preventing any animal from seeing another being killed, or from the sight or smell of blood. These walls only extend to half the width of the court, allowing ample space for circulation and the veterinary inspectors, whilst it also allows the superintendent’s office to be placed in such a position that this official can have full command over the slaughter hall, practically without leaving his office. I am, Sir, yours faithfully, R. STEPHEN AYLING F.R.I.B.A. Dartmouth-street, Westminster, S.W., April 1st, 1908.
OSCILLATORY CURRENT CAUTERY. To the Editor of THE LANCET. SIR,-In the Daily Telegrcrph of April 4th appears
a com-
munication from its Paris correspondent upon the experiments now being carried out on wireless telephony at the Eiffel Tower by Dr. Lee de Forest. The final paragraph of the communication is of very great interest to the medical profession generally, so it may be as well to quote the salient
points :Incidentally Mr. de Forest has made what may be considered a new discovery. The current from his apparatus had burnt his hands, and he at
concluded that this would be a very simple way of with electricity and without pain. He made some demonstrations at the Saint Louis Hospital in the presence of Dr. Pozzi and other well-known surgeons, who, he says, were quite enthusiastic once
cauterising wounds
the process of healing. At first nothing occurred but a very slight moisture or exudation of clear lymph. In about ten days the circumference was slightly raised and elastic and in a little more than a fortnight the exuded lymph formed a scab. At the end of rather more than five weeks the scab fell off and left a smooth skin beneath ; and now, at the end of 15 months, it is very difficult to see where the lesion was produced. I did not immediately rush off to demonstrate this phenomenon, but with British phlegm have been busying myself in steadily perfecting the method, so that it may be used with the greatest effect and with the greatest safety to the patient. The apparatus is now complete. I do not wish for a moment to detract from the merit of Dr. de Forest’s discovery of this phenomenon, which is absolutely original and independent of mine, but I do wish to show that electro-therapeutics in England maintain their place in the front rank and that this so-called new discovery in Paris was anticipated in England at least 15 months previous to the present announcement. I am, Sir, yours faithfully, HORACE MANDERS, M.D. Brux. Harley-street, W., April 6th, 1908.
THE TREATMENT OF " MANIA
(?).
To the Editor of THE LANCET. SIR,-Dr. Robert Jones’s able and thoughtful letter in your last week’s edition on this topic must, I feel sure, be welcomed by everyone interested in the treatment of mental disease. More especially must this be the case when it is recognised that after 30 years’ experience as a medical attendant in huge asylums for the insane he is so definitely of opinion that "the proper treatment of insanity must be the study of each case upon its merits." This is the gospel I have preached during a period of 35 years’ experience of insanity, and that experience makes me more and more impressed with the stern necessity for an intimate study of the temperament, character, and habits of each patient if a successful issue of one’s treatment is to be hoped for. Pathological research may some day help us and guide us in our treatment I admit, but in my humble opinion never so much as careful individual clinical study. Hard and fast rules as to rest, change, drugs, diet, &c., are impossible, and the idea that a physician can in half an hour’s consultation map out a definite line of successful treatment in any case of mental disorder is to my mind quite fallacious. I am the greatest believer in "the influence of one mind upon another, whereby qualities such as insight, tact, common sense, inspired by a feeling of brotherhood and sympathy " are made so valuable, but such influence must be the outcome of knowledge of the character, the temperament, and the absolute workings of the mind of your patient. To obtain this knowledge individual attention is necessary, and how this can be gained in the huge asylums of to-day passes my comprehension. The study of the evolution of
delusion in many recent cases of insanity is an individual one, and the value of such study cannot be over-estimated. Dr. Henry Maudsley, in making his munificent offer to the over his discovery. London County Council, has emphasised all these facts, and in in are not the least indebted to Now, we, England, either France or America for this discovery, insomuch as it it is to be sincerely hoped that when the House of Commons has sufficient time to discuss the serious question of the was anticipated in England as far back as December, 1906, present legalised treatment of insanity it will do all in was with continuous when I oscillations of experimenting its to give facilities for the early and individual power electricity with a view to their therapeutic application. I treatment of mental disease. the soon found whenever retardation was due more that, very I am, Sir, to the inductance of the shunt circuit than the capacity LIONEL A. WEATHERLY, M.D. Aberd. thereof, any fingering of the solenoid, constituting the 1908. Bournemouth, April 12th, in the smell of resulted burnt flesh inductance, invariably and subsequent destruction of the epidermis of the fingers OPEN WINDOWS AND ADENOIDS. implicated, and this without any pain at the moment of To the Editor of THE LANCET. contact. It occurred to me that, in this phenomenon, we have a means of rapidly and practically painlessly destroying SIR,-In one of your annotations last week attention was malignant growths, and nasvi, situated in spots which are drawn to Professor William Thomson’s observations with inaccessible to other applications of electric or radio-active regard to cold and damp air. His researches appear to me measures, such places, for instance, as the inner canthus of to corroborate my contention that the method of ventilating the eye. rooms by keeping the windows open on cold and damp night? In order to ascertain the length of time in which such a is a serious error. For among other things he points out destruction of tissue would be repaired and in order to that dried and heated air has a much more powerful oxidising give some guide by which we might forecast a cure, on influence on the blood than cold and damp air. His observaDec. 28th, 1906, I submitted the first metacarpo-phalangeal tions should, I think, be considered by those who on a priori knuckle of my right hand for a few seconds to the fat, hot grounds believe that open windows in cold and damp weather spark from the inductance solenoid. At once and absolutely can have nothing to do with adenoids, unless it be in the without pain a small hole was drilled clean through the skin. way of preventing them. If the various otter arguments There was no eschar, as in an ordinary burn, but a simple and figures which I brought forward should not be considered circular tunnel as if of a drill through steel. I protected the sufficient to establish the fact that children brought up spot by simply covering it from the air and daily watched on the open window principle suffer much more frequently
yours faithfully,
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