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Pneumoconiosis in South Wales

Mr. DAVID WILLIAMS asked the Minister of Fuel and Powerhow many miners in South Wales had continued their under-ground employment after being certified to be suffering frompneumoconiosis.-Mr. PHILIP NOEL-BAKER replied : OnDec. 31, 1949, 2372 men who had been given an assessment inrespect of pneumoconiosis under the Industrial InjuriesAct, 1948, were employed underground in the South Walescoalfield.

Quarantine Medical Certificates

Major HowARD JOHNSON asked the Minister of NationalInsurance whether she was aware that a certificate givenby a general medical practitioner placing a person in quarantinecould not be accepted for a benefit claim ; and, in view ofthe fact that this cast a slur upon such a practitioner, whethershe would amend the National Insurance (Unemploymentand Sickness Benefit) Regulations in this respect.-Dr.EDITH SuMMERSEiLL replied: The medical officer of healthis responsible for action to prevent the spread of infectiousdisease, and it is in accordance with the recommendation ofthe National Insurance Advisory Committee that he is alsothe authority for the issue of insurance certificates in thesecases. This implies no slur on general practitioners and Isee no reason to alter the present provision.

Medicine and the Law

The Wrong BottleAT an inquest in Blyth last month the evidence showed

that a woman, aged 23, had died through the inadvertentuse of potassium citrate in an injection.A staff nurse with over twenty years’ experience

explained to the coroner that, when working at a clinic,she noticed that her flask of distilled water was almostempty. She took it upstairs and asked an orderly torefill it ; she held the flask while he filled it ; she didnot particularly notice the bottle which he used. On thedoctor’s instructions she had to prepare two injectionsfor a patient. For the second injection she filled a

syringe and handed it to the doctor, assisting him whilehe injected the contents into the patient’s arm. The

patient, sitting in a chair, siumped forward and collapsed.Attempts at artificial respiration failed and deathfollowed.The jury returned a verdict of death from misadventure.

The Duty to Inform the CoronerAt another inquest last month the resident surgical

officer gave evidence that a woman was admitted to aSurrey hospital with general peritonitis. - An operationwas conducted but nothing obvious was found to accountfor her condition ; she died two days later. At a limitednecropsy an- object was discovered which he at first

thought was a piece of bamboo ; it was suggestedthat it was the bone of a skate. He signed a deathcertificate.The coroner commented that the death certificate

was useless ; no registrar would have accepted it ; itmeant that there was considerable delay before hehimself -was informed and considerable difficulty in

carrying out a further necropsy. The pathologist whogave evidence of this further examination said that hewas unable to decide the cause of death because the bodyhad been treated with embalming fluid ; he thought thesplinter looked like vegetable fibre of some sort. Thecoroner stated that death obviously resulted from

perforation of the bowel by an object 3 in. long andpointed at both ends ; " it may possibly be a fish-bone,but I doubt it." He told the resident surgical officer thathe should have informed the coroner’s officer forthwithas soon as it was known that death was not due tonatural causes. " You seem," he said, " to have donea number of things which do not commend themselvesto me." A verdict of accidental death was recorded.

In England Now

A Running Commentary by Peripatetic Correspondents

BLOODSHOT

Wintrobe O’Landsteiner Wiener FitzKahnLay in his lab on a satin divan

And sipping his saline he passed in reviewThe things he had almost decided to do,

Like writing his thesis on " Proof of a Theorem

Disproving that Serum is Plasma (or Serum)."He thought of the days in the dawn of his youthWhen, asking no more than Pursuit of the Truth,

With lenses all dirty and eyepieces scratched,He counted corpuscles before they were hatched,

And many a time made a clear diagnosisOf Multiple Red-cell Erythrocytosis.

(He turned to a female technician and beat herUntil she remembered the height of the titre.He bade her get up and go dance a pavaneFor TTintrobe O’Landsteiner TViener FitzKahn).

Landsteiner Wintrobe O’Kahn de MacWiener .

Arose and announced with unruffled demeanour," My private researches have recently shownA way by which blood can be drawn from a stone

And pure inexhaustible rivers of goreExtracted from crude sanguiniferous ore."" This tide of affairs we shall take at the floodAnd pluck off the leeches who live on our blood-

Agglutinin courses the vessels of menRemorselessly seeking agglutinogen-

So Fate in fulfilment now fittingly sendsThese bloodsucking bleeders to bloodthirsty ends ! "

(The sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose ;The pips are as bitter as sweet is the juice-" That donor will faint e’er he gets any greener!"Said Landsteiner TVintrobe O’Kahn de l4Taell’iener.)

* * *

" A swan can break a man’s arm with a blow of hiswing " : thus traditional childhood lore led me and myfellows in my very young days in the Thames Valleyto regard these lordly birds with respect and even fear.Increasing stature and experience of the vulnerabilityof the cock swan to a sharp poke in the neck with anoar or paddle led to modification of these feelings, andfor years past I have looked on the swan merely as apleasant adjunct to the landscape so long as he keptin his right place, and as an easily disposed of nuisancewhen he didn’t. But once again I have had occasionto modify my views.

It was a lovely June day : my daughter and I wereexploring, in a punt, a hitherto unvisited reach of riverwith a view to a bathe. We found the reach ended ina steep weir, and it was easy to slide down its weed-covered cement into the mild turbulence of the waterat its foot. Fifty yards away was the opposite banktowards which we swam and where we found a pair ofswans with a brood of newly hatched cygnets receivingthe attentions of a picnic party-a charming sight.I left my daughter admiring it while I swam out into thepool. A shout from the bank made me look round tofind the cock bird bearing down upon me-neck feathersruffled and wings half outspread so as to make him looktwice his size, head proudly poised and with a malignantgleam in his beady eyes, viewed from the level of thewater he presented a noble and formidable spectacle.My immediate, and quite irrational, apprehension wasof the beak in my eyes, and my reaction to shout " shoo

"

and splash at the downbearing menace. The nextmoment the air above me was full of wings and I received ,

a blow on the side of the head that knocked me silly.When I was again in a position to observe events I foundthe malevolent fowl bearing down upon me from anotherangle. To present’ my feet to the onslaught and tokick violently seemed sound tactics, but merely resultedin a further whirlwind of wings and a couple of blows onmy right arm which numbed it from the shoulder down.The next and subsequent attacks I evaded by diving andswimming under water towards the shallows, and thissomewhat ignominous procedure seemed to be thecorrect tactical answer. Once in the shallows it waseasy to heave a few stones in his direction-a threat