1753SIR E. CASSEL’S GIFT FOR THE RELIEF OF OPHTHALMIA IN EGYPT.

Wales, in making this claim for the foundation of EpsomCollege in unmistakeable terms, laid stress upon the fact thatthe College as a whole was a highly successful public school,no more requiring public subvention than, say, Eton. It is onlythe charitable side that requires assistance and the assistancecan be asked for with complete dignity as a right.

BABY SHOWS.

THE surest way to reach a mother’s heart is throughher child and commercial enterprise at Walthamstow hasapparently not been slow to turn this knowledge to

practical account, for we recently noticed in a morningcontemporary the following paragraph : "A fat babycompetition organised by a local firm of furnituredealers was one of the most popular holiday attractions atWalthamstow. Nearly 50 babies, all born in March, cameto the scales which were erected in the firm’s shop window.The winner tipped the beam at 16J2- pounds. At the con-

clusion of the weighing prizes were awarded. " Unfor-

tunately, baby shows of this kind have a tragic as well asan amusing side, for the reason that they encourage thebelief, which is far too generally entertained, even

among the educated classes, that obesity in infants is

synonymous with health. It is, however, a matter ofclinical experience that a fat baby is unhealthy, withlittle resistance to disease, and likely to succumb on the leastprovocation to any of the so-called minor ailments of infancy.It is very greatly to be regretted that baby shows, if theyare to be held at all, cannot be utilised for educating thelaity to admire in babies those points" which are genuinelydeserving of admiration and expressive of a physiologicalcondition, instead of acting, as they do, as direct induce-ments to over-feeding with foods which fatten but donot produce sound, healthy tissues. Some little time

ago Mr. Rowntree in his admirable work entitled

"Poverty" drew attention to the fact that the dietariesof a large proportion of the poorer classes were deficientin nitrogen-containing or proteid foods to a degree whichwas incompatible with the maintenance of a normal

standard of health. Unfortunately, with few exceptionstissue-forming or proteid foods are expensive, while the

nitrogen-free varieties such as the carbohydrates are com-paratively cheap and hence there are economic reasons whythe small wage-earner should, in the belief that he is layingout his money to the best advantage, provide himself and hisfamily with foods which are quite unsuitable. The effect ofthis injudicious dieting is even more serious in the case ofchildren than in the case of adult persons, for in addition tothe necessity for the proteid elements of food for the repair-ing of tissue there is a necessity for them to satisfy theneeds of growth. An examination of the dietaries of thatconsiderable number of infants of the poorer classes whoare artificially fed discloses the fact that while they arerelatively starved as far as proteids and fats are concernedthey are grossly overfed in respect of the carbohydrateelements, with the consequence that in addition to an

unnecessarily large storage of glycogen and fat in such

infants there is also a large predominance of physiologi-cally unsound tissue approximating somewhat closelyto the embryonic type, deficient in nitrogen and liable to

undergo degenerative changes of the hyaline, mucoid, or

carbohydrate type. The appearance of these carbohydrate-or sugar-fed infants is highly characteristic. There is a

curiously translucent and almost opalescent appearance ofthe tissues ; they are hypertrophic square-headed infantsand to the touch they are cold, gelatinous, and flabby, withnone of the elasticity and tone which characterise the tissuesof the vigorous, healthy, breast-fed infant. It is these sugar-fed, gelatinous babies who receive the prizes at infant showsand are held up by their proud parents as paragons of

vigorous babyhood. For this reason it is impossible to.

doubt the mischievous effect of fat baby shows suchas that recently held at Walthamstow. Baby shows-

properly conducted, the prizes being awarded to those.babies who manifested the largest number of really good"points" and the clearest evidence of careful manage-ment, would be a practical and fruitful means of educatingthe laity in the true principles of infant culture and at thesame time would disabuse the minds of mothers of many oftheir misconceptions, and among others of their admirationfor the hypertrophic pathological types which Raphaeland others among the great masters have perpetuated oncanvas as pleasing standards of vigorous babyhood to becopied and admired. -

SIR ERNEST CASSEL’S GIFT FOR THE RELIEF

OF OPHTHALMIA IN EGYPT.

Sir Ernest Cassel having given a large sum of moneyto the Egyptian Government for the relief of ophthalmiain Egypt it has been decided to send travelling dis-

pensaries into the country for the relief of those suffererswho are unable to attend the already existing hospitals.There will be at first one of these dispensaries or

ambulance hospitals which will have a couple of tents

with beds for operation cases and for the more serious

treatment of cases. This will travel about from placeto place under the direction of an ophthalmic surgeonwho will have under him an Egyptian assistant surgeon.If the experiment is successful the number of dispensarieswill be increased. Mr. A. F. MacCallan has been appointedby the Egyptian Government to organise and to directthe enterprise with the title of "inspector of travellingophthalmic dispensaries in Egypt." Mr. MacCallan was

formerly senior house surgeon at the Royal London

Ophthalmic Hospital (Moorfields) and at the present timeholds the post of chief clinical assistant at the hospital. Hewill leave for Egypt immediately and has clearly the neces-sary qualifications to start the quaint experiment upon asound basis. But what will be regarded as a sufficientmeasure of success to justify the making of further experi-ments, and who is to judge what is a success and what is afailure ?

____

PARALYSIS AGITANS.

A VALUABLE "symposium" on paralysis agitans appears inthe New York Medical Journal of May 2nd, and among thecontributors are Dr. Joseph Collins, Professor M. Allen Starr,and Dr. Bernard Sachs. The facts observed and collectedcover a very extensive field and refer mainly to the etiology,pathology, and treatment of this affection in their latest

developments. Dr. Collins states in his paper that among50 cases recently under his care 34 were males and 16 werefemales or 68 per cent. and 32 per cent. respectively. The

average age at which the disease developed was 51 years.The youngest patient was 32 years of age and the oldest 72.He found paralysis agitans to be frequent among persons ofCeltic descent and rare among the Hebrews. There was a

history of neuropathic heredity in 13 of the cases or 26 percent. and a history of paralysis agitans in the parents oruncles in six cases. Syphilis and alcohol were conspicuousby their absence as etiological factors. Worry and anxietywere traceable in seven cases and injury was assignedas a cause in the same number of cases. Dr. Collinsstated his belief that "paralysis agitans was a diseaseof early senility, occurring as the reward of virtue."Professor Starr stated that a hereditary predispositionto the disease was met with in about 4 or 5 percent. of cases, but that anxiety and injury appearedto him to bear a distinct etiological relation to paralysisagitans. He had never seen a patient absolutely cured of

1754 THE MEDICAL PROFESSION AND ST. LUKE’S DAY.

paralysis agitans, but he had observed variability in thecourse of the symptoms and marked improvement in a

’very few. The disease did not appear to be a steadily pro-gressive one. Hyoscine in doses of rh th of a grain takenthree times a day gave great benefit and relief to the

patients, as did also Swedish movements and massage skil-fully administered after a prolonged hot bath. Dr. Les-

- zynsky said that the beneficial effect of hyoscine soon passedaway and that patients were averse to taking the drug. Thedisease presented remissions at times and most of the

patients were amenable to, and benefited by, mental" sugges-tion." " He had tried the system of muscular exercises

recently devised by Swaboda, which called for voluntary-effort entirely on the part of the patient and dispensed withpassive movements, and found that the patients appeared tobenefit thereby. Dr. Stuart Hart had collected from

Professor Starr’s clinic at the Vanderbilt Hospital 219.cases of paralysis agitans, of which 139 were males and 80were females. Only two of the total number of cases were,under 30 years of age and they were both males. The disease

began most frequently between the ages of 45 and 65 years.In six cases it was stated that the patient’s mother and inthree the father had had paralysis agitans, while in sevenother cases brothers or sisters were said to have been,affected. 40 patients could trace the beginnings of theirillness to anxiety and worry and half of these also attri-,buted it specifically to fright. Dr. Sachs said he was of

opinion that paralysis agitans was distinctly a disease ofmiddle and old age. The most important exciting causeswere emotional excitement and some prolonged or exhaust-ing disease. It contrasted with disseminated sclerosiswhich was a disease of early adult life. He had occasionallyseen cases which, starting with symptoms like those of dis-seminated sclerosis, eventually developed into paralysis.agitans. Professor Mendel of Berlin had recently recordedanother case of the same nature which suggested that theremight be some relationship between these two diseases. Dr.

Sachs found that some form of "vibratory therapeutics" wasthe only satisfactory method of treatment, though hyoscineand other sedatives were also needed occasionally. Dr. JosephFraenkel stated that he had witnessed ten necropsies of,cases of paralysis agitans. They all showed a remarkablefreedom from arterio-sclerosis. As the result of inquiry he. concluded that persons with paralysis agitans were rarelyaddicted to alcohol and rarely exhibited evidences of

syphilitic infection, and to this extent he would indorseDr. Collins’s statement that the disease was " the reward ofvirtue." " Dr. Harlow Brooks said that he could find no grossor naked-eye lesions in four cases of paralysis agitanswhich he had examined post mortem. Dr. J. Hunt said thatthe "premature senility" theory of paralysis agitans must be.accepted in a limited sense and as applicable to the bulbo-spinal or central nervous system only since the arteries were,healthy and free from senile degenerative changes.

THE MEDICAL PROFESSION AND ST. LUKE’SDAY.

OUR quotations from a correspondent’s letter upon the

.above subject, together with our remarks thereupon, seem tohave given pain to another correspondent. Out of considera-tion for himself we neither publish his letter nor do we givehis name. With some things that he says we are inaccordance. We have not always been able to approve of’the conduct of the Guild of St. Luke as exemplifiedat the Evensong held in St. Paul’s Cathedral upon St. Luke’sDay. Our correspondent accuses us of endeavouring to

introduce into the profession a clerical atmosphere. We did

nothing of the sort, all that we urged was that it is a goodthing for the members of the medical profession in any,given town or district to meet together for the purpose of

common worship. Our correspondent further says, speakingof the members of the medical profession, "the best andmost independent among them are almost to a man agnosticand hold the clergy in low esteem." It appears to us that

our correspondent, at least, is an agnostic, for the word

means one who is without knowledge. All of us are

agnostics in great part as regards the secrets of disease,of life and of death, and of what comes after death. Butan agnostic is not an atheist, nor does he of necessity holdthe clergy in low esteem. It is not our province to quarrelwith any man’s religion, but there are few men, whetherChristians or not, who do not believe in some Power higherthan themselves and we can see nothing but good in theassembling together of men already bound by the commonchain of service to their fellows, for the purpose of worship,and thereby to confess that they owe something to the Powerabove humanity and also that there does come a time to allmen, and especially to those of the medical profession, whenhuman knowledge is at an end.

ALLEGED JEWISH RITUAL MURDERS ANDTHE CORPSE IN THE MEDIÆVAL

PHARMACOPOEIA.

THE deeply rooted belief, once common in England andstill apparently prevalent in Russia and Eastern Europegenerally, that murders have been committed by Jews forritual or magical reasons has of course no foundation in fact,but as a vulgar error it is interesting. Sir Richard Burtonseems to have been of this opinion and is reported to haveintended to undertake, if he did not actually do so, one ofhis exhaustive folklorist researches into the genesis of suchlegends as that of Little St. Hugh of Lincoln, a Christianchild found dead in one of the "Jews’ houses " in that cityand popularly believed, at the time of his death in the

thirteenth century, to have been crucified after undergoingthe rite of circumcision. Though murder in this and similarcases is out of the question it is not improbable that somedark and cruel taint of Canaanitish superstition lingered onobscurely in the ghettos of the Middle Ages, just as cannibal-ism of a ritual kind is still found among obscure ascetic

sects in India (the Bhauls and Aghoris), or as orgiasticpractices were at one time rife, according to St. Epiphanes,among certain Christian heretics. Medicine, which from thepoint of view of folklore has much the same descent as super-stition, was in the Middle Ages largely a Jewish art and wasfull of the relics of cannibalism and of the savage belief inthe mystic efficacy as medicines to soul and body of humanflesh, blood, and so forth. The cadaver in its various pre-parations, the blood and other humours of the living, as wellas human hair, nails, and teeth, were held to be cures for amultitude of ills, but especially for epilepsy. In his remark-

able tract, I I De Remediis ex Microcosmo," Boecler, a can-didate for a medical degree at Strasbourg, writing as lateas 1711, gravely discusses the uses to which all parts ofthe corpse and of the living may be put. Already,as his text proves, the opinion of many scientific phy-sicians had become hostile to what we may call corpsemedicines, but Boecler writes of them with an openmind and in the spirit of one who will not wholly con-demn what was at one time universally accepted lest

valuable medicaments should be lost to the Pharmacopoeia.Human blood, he tells us, is used as a liniment in cases ofskin disease. An aqua divina may be distilled from a

properly dismembered body and when mixed with the bloodof a sick man is sometimes put in front of a fire and held tobe an augury of his recovery or decease according as theingredients coalesce or not. Human flesh has a number ofcurative virtues and in the form of mummy dust is a par-ticularly efficacious remedy for consumption and all affec-tions of the chest down to a common cough, as well as for