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The Value of a Scientific Education.
624 years improved housing accommodation for the poor. The committee, however, estimate that it will require an expenditure of about £3,500,000 to allow of the sweeping away of all the houses belonging to the third group-that is, the houses classified alike as being unfit, and incapable of being rendered fit, for human habitation, and to replace these houses
with
adequate dwellings.
Such
an
expenditure by
the municipality would, the committee consider, be a too heavy burden on the rates, and they look in their recommendations alike to State aid and private enterprise to meet a terrible situation. Every encouragement, they say, should be given to the investment of private capital in building schemes of the right sort, and the principle of rebated taxation might be continued if it were employed under rigid conditions. But it is to State aid that the committee mainly look, and while Mr. MACCABE in his separate note recommends a civic survey as a preliminary to a scheme of town planning, he would probably agree that no such enterprise could be undertaken on a sufficiently large scheme at the expense of the Dublin
residents.
The Value of a Scientific Education. number of the most profoundly foolish advertisements appear day after day in the columns of journals whose readers, it is natural to suppose, have received what is known as a good general education. We are reminded of the fact regularly by readerswho send us newspaper cuttings, and who, if medical men, ask us to protest against the issue of such puffs as they enclose, or, if laymen, to give them information as to the accuracy of the claims made. We cannot think that these advertisements would be inserted if in no circumstances did they receive any response, and that is tantamount to saying that they appear to a fairly cultivated class of the British public, despite their preposterous character, to be reasonable statements, having just the natural bias of the inventor towards his own child. Yet these same advertisements to anybody who has had the least instruction in physics, who has some knowledge of the processes of cytology, of the properties of fluids, of what is implied by the words electricity and magnetism, become revealed as hopeless rubbish. The complete ignorance of the public as to the principles of natural philosophy makes them an easy prey to the imaginings of all kinds of faddists and self-deceivers and of not a few rogues. A
LARGE
But it is not only that they might be better protected against the wiles of the charlatan, or even that they might be better able to appreciate the true objective of medicine, that a general education of the public in scientific elements is mainly desirable; it is also desirable because with such knowledge the world becomes so much more intelligible a place. This, of course,
is also the claim of those who uphold the ulaiversal instruction of our youth in the classics. Without reading literature at its fountain head, say the more ardent of these advocates, the evolu. tion of thought, the development of philosophy, and the real value of historical episodes cannot be appreciated, and the lack of general standards thus implied unfits a man to some extent for leadership and makes of him also a less intelligent follower. But, as we all know, there is a wide difference of opinion on the subject, and this was recently one and the on very well illustrated when same day Professor H. B. BARKER addressed the general meeting of the Association of Public Sir FREDERIC Schools Science Masters, and KENYON, director of the British Museum, addressed We quote from the the Classical Association. Times :"Latin and Greek," said Professor BARKER, " ought to be regarded as luxuries and not as essentials in education. He hoped there would soon be an organised revolt of British parents
this system, and a demand that their boyss should be taught subjects that would be useful to them in after life, such as modern languages, science, and mathematics." " Their creed," said Sir FREDERIC KENYON, speaking for the supporters of classical education, " was not merely that a man might read the classics and be blameless, but that a man would be a better man of business, a better lawyer, a better merchant, a better stockbroker, a less hide-bound politician, if he kept alive in his soul the love of literature, the interest in things of the intellect, of which the Greek and Latin classics were the spring and perennial source of refreshment." The diametrically opposed opinions, or other of which is held, and often one held vehemently, by all who consider the important question of education, cannot be reconciled by There is no room in the some middle course. educational lifefor instruction in modern languages, science, and mathematics on the one hand, and classics on the other, if the curriculum is to be genuinely followed out by any large proportion of students and to any reasonable standards of learning; and among those who naturally resort to the public school sooner or later a choice between the classical and modern sides has to be made. An increasing number of boys, with parental approval, are following the lead of Professor BARKER, and as far as medical education is concerned this is of good omen, not so much because the medical student gets small return from a classical education -for that is not at all our view, the value of such education has manifested itself time after timebut because a larger section of the public is receiving a training by which they can appreciate what medicine stands for, as well as understand something of the physical side of the world in which they live. As a solution of the overloaded medical curri. culum it has been suggested that the medical student should be separated at some earlier age than now prevails from his colleagues at school, so
against
625 that he may obtain during the school age the in the instruction ancillary sciences which will enable him to begin at a reasonable This would time his purely professional course. entail upon all parts of the country the provision at schools of adequate instruction in chemistry, physics, and elementary biology, if the youth of the different parts of the kingdom are to have equal chances, so that the proposal has great difficulties. These would be faced at once if the education of youth generally was in question, and not the training of a few predestined for a scientific career, but sooner rather than later the provision for scientific education will be forthcoming. We see all that is implied in arguing that such a compulsory training in natural philosophy should become general in our schools, and we do not expect for a moment that there will be any prompt acquiescence among educational authorities in the suggestion that in the ordinary school course natural philosophy should be the centre of the curriculum, classical and mathematical specialism being provided for as specialism in science now is provided for. But it is impossible not to see two things-first, that education has begun to travel in this direction; and, secondly, that with a public possessing a - common and respectable grounding in science be far a there will wider appreciation of the meaning of medical practice. At the present time the medical man is oddly placed. He has successfully got rid of the old authority that he enjoyed as a mystery man, but he does not obtain any ready acquiescence in his views on purely scientific grounds, because the public has so little scientific training. This position matters very little to, say, an astronomer, or even an electrical engineer, but enormously to one who lives in the most intimate personal relations with his fellow man. When the education of the public prevents them from being imposed upon by the grosser advertisements of charlatans, the public will be in a far better position to criticise the practice of medicine, but also in a far better position to appreciate it.
Industrial Anthrax. THE diffusion of knowledge relating to the dangerous character of imported hides, hair, and wool amongst employers of labour and those of their employees who risk infection, is probably responsible for the promptitude with which the latter, as a class, present themselves for expert medical advice whenever the necessity appears to arise. This promptitude, added to improved methods of investigation, makes for earlier diagnosis and correspondingly earlier and therefore more efficient
treatment, and to these combined factors must be ascribed the reduction in the case mortality of anthrax infections noted during the past few But at this point we are faced by years. the fact that, despite Home Office regulations and the work of special investigation boards, the number of individuals who each year contract
of diminution. Indeed, so far as concerns the wool trade, there has been during the past ten years a slow but steady increase in the notifications made annually to the Medical Inspector of Factories. The Home Office regulations strangely enough only apply to factories and workshops and not to wharves and other places where the goods are unloaded from the incoming shipping, but the Home Secretary alluded this week in the House of Commons to the probability of early legislation to remedy this anomaly. Obviously, there is urgent need for further investigation and increased activity in devising and enforcing preventive measures. Industrial anthrax is met with in one of two forms, either as a necrotic pustule on exposed or accessible cutaneous surfaces amongst those who handle the raw material, or as a pneuin wool-sorters monia or broncho-pneumonia or carders, who are liable to inhale the fine and particles of dust given off during manufacturing processes, the clinical evidence of the disease usually manifesting itself within three or four days after exposure to infection. In each case the actual virus is identical in form, and consists in the spores of the anthrax bacillus, derived from desiccated blood clots and exudates from animals that have died or been killed whilst suffering from splenic fever ; since there is practically no evidence implicating the actively multiplying bacilli. Hence the experiments recently reported from the Philippines by BRUIN MITZMAAN on the transmission of anthrax bacilli from infected to healthy animals by means of biting flies, such as Stomoxys calcitrans and Tabanus striatus, highly suggestive though they are in connexion with the problem of animal infection, have little bearing upon the prevention of trade anthrax. Now, the spores of B. anthracis do not come into existence until the blood and exudates have reached the surface of the infected animal’s body and have there been exposed to a free supply of oxygen. Hence the acts of skinning the beast and drying the pelt promote the formation of spores, which in the dry state may retain their vitality and virulence even for very lengthy periods and until transferred to an environment suitable to their germination. If at this stage and in the country of origin the hides are "wet salted"for packing, the moisture promotes the germination of the spores, and the salt, if present in sufficient concentration, destroys the resulting vegetative bacilli. The value of this method is shown by the fact that hides so treated -such as are imported from Australia, South America, and some parts of Europe-hardly ever convey anthrax to the British worker, whilst those from China, Persia, East India, Russia, Siberia, and Africa which are packed in the dry state are responsible for the bulk of the cases of human anthrax in this country. Here, then, and at the same time is a fairly reliable anthrax
infection shows
no
signs
hairs
simple preventive home
consumer
measure,
but, unfortunately, the
is powerless to compel the foreign
with
adequate dwellings.
Such
an
expenditure by
the municipality would, the committee consider, be a too heavy burden on the rates, and they look in their recommendations alike to State aid and private enterprise to meet a terrible situation. Every encouragement, they say, should be given to the investment of private capital in building schemes of the right sort, and the principle of rebated taxation might be continued if it were employed under rigid conditions. But it is to State aid that the committee mainly look, and while Mr. MACCABE in his separate note recommends a civic survey as a preliminary to a scheme of town planning, he would probably agree that no such enterprise could be undertaken on a sufficiently large scheme at the expense of the Dublin
residents.
The Value of a Scientific Education. number of the most profoundly foolish advertisements appear day after day in the columns of journals whose readers, it is natural to suppose, have received what is known as a good general education. We are reminded of the fact regularly by readerswho send us newspaper cuttings, and who, if medical men, ask us to protest against the issue of such puffs as they enclose, or, if laymen, to give them information as to the accuracy of the claims made. We cannot think that these advertisements would be inserted if in no circumstances did they receive any response, and that is tantamount to saying that they appear to a fairly cultivated class of the British public, despite their preposterous character, to be reasonable statements, having just the natural bias of the inventor towards his own child. Yet these same advertisements to anybody who has had the least instruction in physics, who has some knowledge of the processes of cytology, of the properties of fluids, of what is implied by the words electricity and magnetism, become revealed as hopeless rubbish. The complete ignorance of the public as to the principles of natural philosophy makes them an easy prey to the imaginings of all kinds of faddists and self-deceivers and of not a few rogues. A
LARGE
But it is not only that they might be better protected against the wiles of the charlatan, or even that they might be better able to appreciate the true objective of medicine, that a general education of the public in scientific elements is mainly desirable; it is also desirable because with such knowledge the world becomes so much more intelligible a place. This, of course,
is also the claim of those who uphold the ulaiversal instruction of our youth in the classics. Without reading literature at its fountain head, say the more ardent of these advocates, the evolu. tion of thought, the development of philosophy, and the real value of historical episodes cannot be appreciated, and the lack of general standards thus implied unfits a man to some extent for leadership and makes of him also a less intelligent follower. But, as we all know, there is a wide difference of opinion on the subject, and this was recently one and the on very well illustrated when same day Professor H. B. BARKER addressed the general meeting of the Association of Public Sir FREDERIC Schools Science Masters, and KENYON, director of the British Museum, addressed We quote from the the Classical Association. Times :"Latin and Greek," said Professor BARKER, " ought to be regarded as luxuries and not as essentials in education. He hoped there would soon be an organised revolt of British parents
this system, and a demand that their boyss should be taught subjects that would be useful to them in after life, such as modern languages, science, and mathematics." " Their creed," said Sir FREDERIC KENYON, speaking for the supporters of classical education, " was not merely that a man might read the classics and be blameless, but that a man would be a better man of business, a better lawyer, a better merchant, a better stockbroker, a less hide-bound politician, if he kept alive in his soul the love of literature, the interest in things of the intellect, of which the Greek and Latin classics were the spring and perennial source of refreshment." The diametrically opposed opinions, or other of which is held, and often one held vehemently, by all who consider the important question of education, cannot be reconciled by There is no room in the some middle course. educational lifefor instruction in modern languages, science, and mathematics on the one hand, and classics on the other, if the curriculum is to be genuinely followed out by any large proportion of students and to any reasonable standards of learning; and among those who naturally resort to the public school sooner or later a choice between the classical and modern sides has to be made. An increasing number of boys, with parental approval, are following the lead of Professor BARKER, and as far as medical education is concerned this is of good omen, not so much because the medical student gets small return from a classical education -for that is not at all our view, the value of such education has manifested itself time after timebut because a larger section of the public is receiving a training by which they can appreciate what medicine stands for, as well as understand something of the physical side of the world in which they live. As a solution of the overloaded medical curri. culum it has been suggested that the medical student should be separated at some earlier age than now prevails from his colleagues at school, so
against
625 that he may obtain during the school age the in the instruction ancillary sciences which will enable him to begin at a reasonable This would time his purely professional course. entail upon all parts of the country the provision at schools of adequate instruction in chemistry, physics, and elementary biology, if the youth of the different parts of the kingdom are to have equal chances, so that the proposal has great difficulties. These would be faced at once if the education of youth generally was in question, and not the training of a few predestined for a scientific career, but sooner rather than later the provision for scientific education will be forthcoming. We see all that is implied in arguing that such a compulsory training in natural philosophy should become general in our schools, and we do not expect for a moment that there will be any prompt acquiescence among educational authorities in the suggestion that in the ordinary school course natural philosophy should be the centre of the curriculum, classical and mathematical specialism being provided for as specialism in science now is provided for. But it is impossible not to see two things-first, that education has begun to travel in this direction; and, secondly, that with a public possessing a - common and respectable grounding in science be far a there will wider appreciation of the meaning of medical practice. At the present time the medical man is oddly placed. He has successfully got rid of the old authority that he enjoyed as a mystery man, but he does not obtain any ready acquiescence in his views on purely scientific grounds, because the public has so little scientific training. This position matters very little to, say, an astronomer, or even an electrical engineer, but enormously to one who lives in the most intimate personal relations with his fellow man. When the education of the public prevents them from being imposed upon by the grosser advertisements of charlatans, the public will be in a far better position to criticise the practice of medicine, but also in a far better position to appreciate it.
Industrial Anthrax. THE diffusion of knowledge relating to the dangerous character of imported hides, hair, and wool amongst employers of labour and those of their employees who risk infection, is probably responsible for the promptitude with which the latter, as a class, present themselves for expert medical advice whenever the necessity appears to arise. This promptitude, added to improved methods of investigation, makes for earlier diagnosis and correspondingly earlier and therefore more efficient
treatment, and to these combined factors must be ascribed the reduction in the case mortality of anthrax infections noted during the past few But at this point we are faced by years. the fact that, despite Home Office regulations and the work of special investigation boards, the number of individuals who each year contract
of diminution. Indeed, so far as concerns the wool trade, there has been during the past ten years a slow but steady increase in the notifications made annually to the Medical Inspector of Factories. The Home Office regulations strangely enough only apply to factories and workshops and not to wharves and other places where the goods are unloaded from the incoming shipping, but the Home Secretary alluded this week in the House of Commons to the probability of early legislation to remedy this anomaly. Obviously, there is urgent need for further investigation and increased activity in devising and enforcing preventive measures. Industrial anthrax is met with in one of two forms, either as a necrotic pustule on exposed or accessible cutaneous surfaces amongst those who handle the raw material, or as a pneuin wool-sorters monia or broncho-pneumonia or carders, who are liable to inhale the fine and particles of dust given off during manufacturing processes, the clinical evidence of the disease usually manifesting itself within three or four days after exposure to infection. In each case the actual virus is identical in form, and consists in the spores of the anthrax bacillus, derived from desiccated blood clots and exudates from animals that have died or been killed whilst suffering from splenic fever ; since there is practically no evidence implicating the actively multiplying bacilli. Hence the experiments recently reported from the Philippines by BRUIN MITZMAAN on the transmission of anthrax bacilli from infected to healthy animals by means of biting flies, such as Stomoxys calcitrans and Tabanus striatus, highly suggestive though they are in connexion with the problem of animal infection, have little bearing upon the prevention of trade anthrax. Now, the spores of B. anthracis do not come into existence until the blood and exudates have reached the surface of the infected animal’s body and have there been exposed to a free supply of oxygen. Hence the acts of skinning the beast and drying the pelt promote the formation of spores, which in the dry state may retain their vitality and virulence even for very lengthy periods and until transferred to an environment suitable to their germination. If at this stage and in the country of origin the hides are "wet salted"for packing, the moisture promotes the germination of the spores, and the salt, if present in sufficient concentration, destroys the resulting vegetative bacilli. The value of this method is shown by the fact that hides so treated -such as are imported from Australia, South America, and some parts of Europe-hardly ever convey anthrax to the British worker, whilst those from China, Persia, East India, Russia, Siberia, and Africa which are packed in the dry state are responsible for the bulk of the cases of human anthrax in this country. Here, then, and at the same time is a fairly reliable anthrax
infection shows
no
signs
hairs
simple preventive home
consumer
measure,
but, unfortunately, the
is powerless to compel the foreign