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SIR GEORGE NEWMAN

THE LANCET

LONDON: SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 1935

SIR GEORGE NEWMAN.—ANTIMALABIAl. BEMEDJES

THE close of the month will see the retirementfrom official life of that great public servant,Sir GEORGE NEWMAN, and the number of medicalmen, and of others placed by their duties in closerelation with medicine, who will regard his passagefrom the sphere of public activity with deepregret, is very large. Sir GEORGE’S work has beenof far-reaching importance for a long period.Twenty-eight years ago he was appointed chiefmedical officer of the Board of Education, and thefact that he was given the status of - principalassistant secretary constituted an importantinnovation. The standing thus obtained was

found to have been amply justified, for it wasconfirmed 12 years later when, on the establish-ment of the Ministry of Health, Sir GEORGEwas appointed chief medical officer with the statusof secretary to the Ministry. The post thus gavemedicine a new position in Government affairs,and the definite rank in the Civil Service provedof direct advantage to medicine both scientificallyand because of its influence upon public opinion.The school medical service immediately becameable to initiate a standard of work which introducedmore clinical and personal medicine into publichealth ; the coordination of different publicinterests with medical progress was maintained,and those who would like to follow how the visionsof an individual may become the practical workof a department, and an accepted public policy,should read Sir GEORGE’S early circulars printedin the medical reports of the Board of Educationprior to his first appointment there. On thearrival of the Ministry of Health NEWMAN becamechief medical officer to the Ministry and to theBoard of Education, and in cooperation withROBERT MoRANT, that giant of public administra-tion, and especially with the support of ARTHURBALFOUR, there came many developments of

departmental work of the first importance, inconnexion with both education and healthinsurance. Of these we may mention two, theadvantage of which to medicine and the publicalike are conspicuous-the technical grants tomedical schools and the measures to deal with theproblems of child welfare. The child not yet atschool was, as far as the State was concerned,non-existent, and to meet this situation camethe idea of schools for mothers, which later foundexpression in the Maternity and Child Welfare Actof 1918. We do not enumerate further the parti-

cular achievements which have marked the medicalwork of the Ministry of Health and of the Boardof Education during the long period through whichSir GEORGE has been the chief executive officer ;there is the less need to do so because the annualreports from both departments have been modelsof clearness and frankness throughout, and havesecured by their unusual literary qualities widenotice. But to one such document particularattention may be directed, namely, the reportof the Committee on Post-graduate Education

(the Athlone Committee) whose outward manifesta-tions to-day are the London School of Hygieneand the Hammersmith Postgraduate MedicalSchool, the Rockefeller Trust and the BritishGovernment each responding generously to a

forceful presentation of the needs.Sir GEORGE NEWMAN leaves public life with

a remarkable record of work done; he hasleft an enduring mark on the Civil Service andraised the status of medicine in the public eyeby his work and his writings. He takes withhim on his retirement a real meed of gratitude.

ANTIMALARIAL REMEDIES

THE Indian Medical Gazette for January, 1935,contains two original contributions and a leadingarticle on the toxic action of Plasmoquine andAtebrin, including some sensible conclusions aboutthe results of their administration. Few will

disagree with the trenchant remarks made uponspecific drugs in general; these antimalarialremedies necessarily follow the rules which haveapplied to salvarsan, emetine, and many others.The course of any new drug is bound to run throughthree distinct phases, not unlike those of larva,pupa, and imago. As a larva introduced by theinventors it shows great promise and is widelyacclaimed ; the bystanders see many virtues andno faults. After an active life it reaches a pupalstage-a stage of metamorphosis, a time of obscu-rity and doubt. This is a period of vilification ;the critics will say nothing good ; the virtueshave become vices, and every evil habit is merci-lessly exposed. Finally, the now established

remedy staggers out of its chrysalis almost ashamedto spread its wings. Of the two synthetic anti-malarial drugs plasmoquine has passed throughall these evolutionary stages and has emergedrather tattered, whilst atebrin has now enteredthe second and critical phase but on the wholeseems likely to be the more perfect insect.

In large doses plasmoquine is definitely toxicand, probably, as Lieut.-Colonel R. N. CHOPRAand Dr. R. N. CHAUDHURI say, 0-06 g. daily istoo big a dose for the average Indian patient,while in Europeans cyanosis, prostration, and

epigastric pain are readily induced by 0.12 g. perdiem. A common practice, however, and one

which (we heartily agree) should be deprecated,is the combination of plasmoquine with atebrinin the maximum doses advocated. Given withatebrin the toxicity of plasmoquine appears to beenhanced ; indeed, in the case of a Bengali doctora condition not unlike blackwater fever seems to