1722

have commented, or in one of them, was introduced by a

proviso that on the death of the partner of the namedCLIFFORD his brother was to step into his shoes. Therefore,as the dissolution through unprofessional conduct was to havethe same effect as the death of the offending partner, it

would also introduce his brother in his place. Clauses

capable of producing such possibly inconvenient results re-quire consideration before the deed containing them is signed.Other features peculiar to the cases of the CLIFFORDS, suchas the fact that Mr. PHILLIPS, a party in one of them, hadentered into partnership with one of the CLIFFORDS without

being himself on the Dentists Register, were dealt with inthe judgments delivered in the Court of Appeal, but do notaffect the question, which was certainly one of interest tothe medical and dental professions at large, whether a pro-fessional man might be saddled against his will with a

partner nnable to carry on the business of the partnership, inspite of a clause in the partnership deed obviously drawnwith no other intention than to prevent such an occurrence.

Annotations."Ne quid nimis."

AN ACT TO MAKE THINGS WHAT THEY SEEM.

SURELY the time has come when room should be found inour legislative machinery for an Act which shall be appliedto articles other than foods and drugs yet which could beadministered in much the same way as is the Sale of Foodand Drugs Act. It is brought home to us almost every daythat the public is imposed upon not merely in regard toarticles of food and drink but in regard also to articles ofclothing and other materials. The local authorities, wesuggest, should be possessed with powers to apply in a

practical manner’the provisions of the Merchandise MarksAct or a similar measure. The public is not very adequatelyprotected against such substitutions as cardboard being soldas leather, cotton as wool or silk or flannel, celluloid orbone as ivory, and a host of other things which are not whatthey seem. The evidence of chemical analysis is hardlywanted in such cases and a staff of analytical chemistswould not be indispensable for the administration ofsuch an Act, though it must be admitted that experts,or at least a body of intelligent men, would have to

be appointed who could discriminate at a glance the genuinefrom the false in such cases as are quoted above. We knowthat there are such men and the various trades con.

cerned know it also and competent inspectors could bedrawn from their ranks. The subject is not outside our

province, for many such substitutions as we have men-tioned are intimately associated with questions of health.The boot, for example, which is not made of leatherbut is what might aptly be described as a cardboardsandwich-that is to say, contains slices of cardboard

inserted in the sole-does not secure that protectionagainst weather which the wearer expects from it.He is not only deceived but his health may be un-

favourably affected by wearing boots which fail to

guard him from the effects of wet and cold because

they are not made entirely of the weather-proof materialwhich good leather is. He might as well look for reliefin a belladonna plaster which contains no belladonna.In that case, however, he is protected, or at least meansof protection are provided in the shape of the Sale of Foodand Drugs Act. Again, health might easily be injured bythe wearing of a material loaded with mineral substances,amongst them being in all likelihood some of a distinctly

’poisonous or irritating nature. A person is protectedagainst the possibility of poisons getting into, or being usedin, his food so far as human efforts can go. For here once

more the Sale of Food and Drugs Act exists to operate in theinterest of his health and well-being. Then is it unreason-

able to demand that he should be protected equally in regardto other things which are essential to his comfort and well,being ? 7 -

THE CONFLICT OF HEREDITY ANDENVIRONMENT.

A THOUGHTFUL paper on the subject of Heredity andEnvironment Relative to Man was read before the MayChapter of the Guild of St. Luke by Surgeon-ColonelF. H. Welch, F.R.C.S. Eng., in which he traversed a con-siderable range of ground of an enormous speculativeterritory, concluding with a brief diversion into the thornypaths of the freewill controversy. His object was to show thevast importance of his subject in its bearing on the generalstatus and the progressive development or retrogressionof the individual and the race, and to study the mannerin which we may best apply its lessons to the sphere ofpractical politics. In considering the influence of heredity onthe organism he echoes a slight protest against the modernscientific consensus of opinion that so strongly supportsthe non-inheritance of acquired characteristics, althoughhe carefully avoids dogmatism on either side, a state ofmind to which the present condition of physical science maywell incline the seeker after truth. He does not considerthat in the present state of educational development thereare sufficient individual altruism and national conscience tomake practicable the proposal to regulate our social ills by asystem of compulsory " Eugenics, " and, indeed, he repeats theuncomfortable observation that, considering heredity alone,our increased care for the lives of the children of the less

favoured classes seems to clash with the method of evolution

by natural selection, whilst no artificial selection is yetavailable to replace it. But a more hopeful note is soundedwhen he turns to consider environment, and in this he seesthe weapon of salvation for the race that evolution ofintellect has given us, but he deprecates the nationalreluctance to wield it vigorously against the dragon of

degenerative tendencies. In pointing out the enormous

control that environment can have over hereditary tendencies,he instances the astonishing work of Robert Owen for 26years in New Lanark. That philanthropist at the beginningof the last century grasped this principle of improve-ment and thereby redeemed from utter social degrada-tion a community of 2500 persons, without recourse in anycase to legal punishment; like excellent results of atten-tion to environment may be seen in the Barnardo homes

to-day, and the educated portion of the community may wellput to itself Surgeon-Colonel Welch’s trenchant questionson the side of environment, as to what means commensurateto the needs are in operation to curtail the deterioratinginfluence of town life with its overcrowding on the physiqueand stamina of our urban population ; to give through asufficiency of decent room-accommodation the chance ofthe growth of modesty and continence among the youngof both sexes; to abolish the superadded temptationsto incontinence through the facilities from open solicita-tion in the streets ; to provide institutes and whole-some recreation for men and boys and girls as counter-

poise to the poor home, the beershop, and the vicious

teachings of the streets ; to train up our rising youthand adults to a sense of patriotism and of what dutydemands towards preparing themselves to defend their

country and homes against outside aggressors; and to

foster the religious sentiment by agencies and ways suffi-cient in amount and right in character. We are in

1723

_ accordance with the author of these words in his con- W4tention that it is the paramount duty of the race to list

search out by all means and to apply in every way the toe

right methods of improving the environment of its units, reifor if we are to sit down impotently under the incubus of tic

heredity and submit as did the doomed Greek family to its he

Ate, then, indeed, must we consider the purpose of existence to

to be in vain. It is in the control of heredity by self-planned tis

environment that the true freedom of man will surely stand an

manifest. ____

co

WEIGERT’S LIFE AND WORK. of

AN interesting biographical sketch of the life and work mof Carl Weigert has recently been published in Germany by AIProfessor Robert Rieder 1 of Bonn. The great contributions tic

made by Weigert to pathological anatomy and histology, ne

to general pathology, bacteriology, neurology, and to the rei

technique of microscopical methods are considered in detail, ml

while the influence which he exerted upon the medical Pa

sciences is carefully outlined. Professor Rieder shows a sc

genuine aRection and a profound admiration for the subject 7of his sketch and presents in comparatively few but well- Ri

chosen words an attractive picture of the personality of gr

Weigert whose single-minded devotion to science, untiring tr:persistence in perfecting the methods which he introduced, pr

and striking originality combined to render him one of the mgreatest investigators of his time. These brilliant gifts wereassociated with a nature of almost childlike simplicity butat once so pleasing and l&ograve;veable that Weigert possessedcountless friends and admirers. Weigert was born inSilesia in 1845 of Jewish parentage and after his student incareer was completed acted as assistant to Waldeyer in tl:Breslau from 1868 to 1870, leaving to serve as an army 01surgeon in the Franco-Prussian war. On his return to civil allife he was assistant to Lebert from 1871 to 1873, becoming SIassistant to Cohnheim in Breslau in the following year. In1878 he went with Cohnheim to Leipzig and became extra- Fordinary professor of pathological anatomy. After the death ,of Cohnheim in 1884 Weigert resigned this post and spent the a!rest of his life at the Senckenburg Institute at Frankfort-on- < t

the-Main, of which he was director. Professor Rieder is 80<

righteously indignant that Weigert never received a " call" &Iacute;Ito the professorship at any of the great universities and Fasks if pathological anatomists of his calibre were so tiplentiful in Germany that there was no room for him ; but n

we may agree with Professor Rieder that science was the rl

gainer by this, for Weigert’s great energies were free to be sdevoted to research and to the instruction of those who hvisited his laboratory, comprising representatives from i,almost every civilised nation. His work was so peculiarly ihis own, so truly scientific, that it may be doubted whether, teven in his own country, the great significance and value of (his work are even yet fully recognised, for his papers were s

mostly published in scientific journals or transactions, were coften highly technical, and were the outcome in many cases tof years of persistent labour. His method for staining the s

white substance of the nerve fibres represented three ryears’ diligent work, while he studied his neuroglia method (for 17 years before he published his results, in spite 1of the earnest advice of well-meaning friends that he

should record some of his observations. This singularpertinacity and whole-hearted devotion appear to havebeen strikingly characteristic of the man. His famemight, perhaps, have been more public if he had pub- jlished a text-book, but as he was wont half jestinglyto say, " They are too full of other people’s wisdom."

1 Carl Weigert und seine Bedeutung f&uuml;r die Medizinische Wissens-schaft unserer Zeit. Eine biographische Skizze von Dr. Robert Rieder.Berlin: Julius Springer. 1906. Pp. 141. Price 3 marks. (Carl Weigertand his Influence on the Medical Science of Our Times, a Bio-graphical Sketch by Dr. Robert Rieder.)

Weigert was essentially an investigator, as a study of thelist of 97 papers published by him shows. His work was

too comprehensive in its scope to admit of more than passingreference here, but it may be remembered that, in addi-tion to his extensive researches on histological subjects,he was the first to apply differential staining methodsto bacteria and to stain them in sections of hardened

tissues, while Koch has borne testimony to the assist-

ance afforded to him in his researches by Weigert’s dis-coveries. Among other pathological studies we may alsorefer to those on the eruption of small-pox, the exudateof diphtheria, the process of coagulation necrosis, the pheno-mena of inflammation, and the primary tissue degenerations.Appended to this biographical sketch are two short apprecia-tions, one by Professor Edinger on Weigert’s services to

neurology, in which the state of histological research inregard to the nervous system before the introduction of themethods of Weigert is described, and another by ProfessorPaul Ehrlich on Weigert’s contributions to histologicalscience, which concludes with the striking tribute, " He hasyielded us not only methods but a system.’’ ProfessorRieder’s book affords an interesting character sketch of agreat personality as well as a valuable summary of his contributions to science and the book should be read with greaprofit by all who are interested in the advances made inmedical science in the nineteenth century.

THE ANTIGONE AT BRADFIELD COLLEGE.

DURING the last two weeks the triennial Greek play has beenperformed in the beautiful model theatre built 17 years agoin the chalk-pit at Bradfield College. It hardly falls withinthe function of a medical journal to offer a detailed criticismon either the acting or the significance of the Antigonealthough the clashing of interests of the individual and theState is not without parallel in the experiences of modernmedicine. From a medical point of view the acting of MrF. R. Barry as Teiresias was conspicuous, as he really didconvey the effect of being blind as well as of being a very dis-

I agreeable old gentleman, whilst Haemon made a most realistic

’

I I corpse, far more so than that of the ill-starred queen. The’

acting of Mr. C. R. Eddison as Antigone, Mr. A. G. R. Garrod,

in the exacting part of Creon, and Mr. G. R. Hamilton asl First Messenger was extraordinarily good and their enuncia-) tion would have done credit to a London stage. Creon shone most in hia spirited quarrel scenes, and Antigone found a representative who gave full value to the dignity and sweetness of a character only matched by our Shakespeare’s) heroines. The choric dancing and chanting were always1 interesting, and the orchestra with ancient fiutes" " andr lyres contributed much to the success of the play. The, talent displayed by the Warden in taking the part of thef Coryphaeus at a day’s notice was very noteworthy, hise

statuesque poses giving a truly Greek stamp to a dramati-e cally effective rendering of the part. An English verses translation of the play by the sixth form contained manye

strong passages. The arrangements for the transport ande

refreshment of the guests were as perfectly organised as they

I could be and enhanced the enjoyment of a memorablee production. ____

e -

BRASS- FOUNDERS’ AGUE.

e THE inhalation of fumes arising during the casting of brasse was known many years ago to produce a disease called brass-)- founders’ ague. The question was debated for a long timeY as to whether the injurious agent was copper or zinc, but it"

appears to be concluded now that zinc is the chief factor,-

Moreover, zinc oxide is much more readily volatilised thanj.. is copper oxide. The symptoms are described as tightnessrt and oppression of the chest with indefinite nervous sensa-0-

tions followed by shivering and profuse sweating. The