1453HOSPITAL MANNERS.—PROFESSOR MOLESCHOTT.

regard as an indictment of the whole class. Besides, as amatter of fact, the house surgeons and house physicians at our

large hospitals are often men who have held their medical

qualification for some months or even years, and who

have employed the interval in study and the acquisitionof experience in some continental medical school or in

attendance at various English hospitals ; and even if

they do occasionally suffer under the "grievous" dis-

advantage of being young men, it is a disadvantage which

every day is remedying. It seems to be assumed that

a young man, as soon as he receives his hospital appointment"throws his good breeding to the winds and addresses the

poor mortals whose suffering he is paid to attend to andrelieve, as if they belonged to an entirely inferior group ofthe quadruped class." The writer from whom we have

quoted has certainly been unfortunate in his acquaintancesamong the class he is abusing. We venture to think

that our experience and knowledge of that class are muchmore extensive and certainly more intimate than his, and

although occasionally we may have met a house

surgeon or house physician who does no credit to the

traditions of his order, such instances are very uncommon.The sneer also with regard to the payment is singularly outof place. The well-paid house physician or house surgeonwe have not had the privilege of meeting as yet. He may

possibly be looming in the distance, but many of the classwhom we have been fortunate enough to know at our largehospitals have not only given up their time and energy tothe duties of their posts, but have actually had to pay noinconsiderable sum for that privilege-a sum so considerableas to place entirely out of the reach of many the possibilityof enjoying the experience which the duties imply. This of

course is a point which we do not wish to emphasise, and itwould certainly be no excuse if the charges implied werefound to be well grounded. Our contention is that they are

not, and that rudeness and incivility are as rare among house

surgeons as they are amongst the general body of medical

practitioners; and we would further venture to ask whether the

general public show to the junior staff at hospitals the con-sideration which is naturally their due? We do not excuse

incivility or rudeness, far less inconsiderateness, to patients onthe part of a hospital resident any more than we excusa thesame behaviour in his practising colleague. In both such

conduct is reprehensible and to be deplored, and in bothwe think it is exceptional. But the discussion, howeverunfortunate in tone and temper, and however great the

ignorance of facts displayed may be, should serve to

put house physicians and house surgeons more on their

guard to carry out even more carefully those virtues of

Christian charity to the practice of which they have dedi-cated their lives.

A NEW PROFESSORSHIP IN JEFFERSON MEDICALCOLLEGE.--At a meeting of the Board of Trustees held onWednesday, Nov. 30th, Dr. G. E. de Schweinitz was, on

the unanimous recommendation of the Faculty, electedClinical Professor of Ophthalmology in the Jefferson MedicalCollege. At the time of his election Dr. de Schweinitz wasProfessor of Ophthalmology in the Philadelphia Polyclinicand Lecturer on Medical Ophthalmoscopy in the University ofPennsylvania.

Annotations.

PROFESSOR MOLESCHOTT.

" Ne quid nimis."

WE give elsewhere an extended report of the honours

conferred in the University of Rome on its septuagenarianProfessor of the Institutes of Medicine. A notable man,even had he never travelled beyond his native Nether-

lands, Moleschott has made himself yet more notable by hissingularly varied, not to say adventurous, career. He beganscientific life, as we have already indicated, under the

auspices of Gerard John Mulder, and the methods and theknowledge he thus early mastered fitted him for the r6le hewas destined to play as a reforming physiologist in doctrineand in exposition. His career at Heidelberg is memorable inacademic and scientific annals for the intrepidity with whichhe assailed and seriously invalidated the views of Liebig,particularly in the domain of nutrition, and after his virtuallyconstrained withdrawal from Germany to Switzerland he con..tinued his thoroughgoing independence of investigation andof teaching in the medical school of Zurich. His beautiful

memoir on "Licht und Leben " marked him out as a

physiologist equally competent in the sphere of specu-lation and of analysis, and the fame he acquiredamong the Swiss led to his transference, on the

invitation of Cavour, to the then somewhat backward schoolof Turin. There his early and keenly sympathetic adoptionof evolutionist principles brought him much enthusiasticsupport from the younger generation of students, while hecontinued to delight and conciliate the older by his lucidexposition of all that was soundest in the new biology. His

pupils soon carried his spirit and methods, as well as his

doctrines, to other centres of professional education, so

that his fame was thoroughly established throughout Italywhen some twelve years ago he was called to the chair of

Physiology in Rome. Again he made his mark, in spite ofmuch recalcitrant tradition, and year by year he sent forthto the Italian cities and provinces a thoroughly equipped bandof working practitioners and hygienists. The good he thusachieved can be estimated only by those who remember theslovenly training so long the rule in Italian Universities ;indeed, the reinvigoration of medicine at his hands hasbeen quite as remarkable as the revival of archaeologyat those of the Germans in the same peninsula. Nothinghas been more wholesome for Italy than the substitu-tion within the last twenty years of Teutonic forLatin influences, particularly as these latter were repre-sented by the French. Italy’s Gallic neighbours were

too nearly akin to herself to exert the same fresh, deeplypenetrating reforms in research and in teaching as thoseintroduced by the investigators and expositors of the Rhine-lands. While France tended to confirm Italy in her worst,most traditional shortcomings, Germany infused a new lifeand gave a novel direction to her ideas and her work, and thefruits of her influence have been especially made conspicuousby the Dutchman as to birth, but Teuton as to experienceand idiosyncrasy, James Moleschott. It was to express her

gratitude for services really inestimable that Italy came forthin all her academic and scientific strength on the 16th inst.,when her central school was the scene of a commemorationas brilliant and impressive as it was unique. The brother-

hood of science, the intercommunion of diverse yet harmoni-ously inspired nationalities, the alliance, offensive and defen-sive, formed between them for the defeat of prejudice andthe reclamation of the unexplored or waste lands of thoughthad no finer illustration than the reciprocity of feeling evokedbetween the hero of the day and his admirers-a reciprocitywhich Italy will exemplify on a yet more imperial scale in

1454

the grand concourse of the profession which is to hold its

triennial festa in Rome in the last week of September, 1893.

ROYALTY AND THE HOSPITALS.

IT is gratifying to see indications that the members of theRoyal Family are beginning to resume their public functionsand that hospitals are among the first institutions to befavoured with their presence. Nothing could be kinder ormore congruous on their part. "A fellow-feeling makes uswondrous kind." The interest of the Royal Family in hos-pitals has always been great and practical, but it can wellbe imagined that the keen anxieties and suffering through i

which they have passed this year have quickened even their I

sympathy with institutions and with a profession which areassociated with sickness and all the "lenient arts " for its

mitigation. We are grateful to their Royal Highnesses thePrince of Wales, the Duke of Connaught and the Duke ofYork for their recent services in this direction, which we reportelsewhere. Their example will stimulate the sympathy ofothers for hospitals, which need and deserve twice as muchsupport as they receive. Nor are we less pleased to thinkthat the active resumption of public functions will be the bestremedy for the grief which must still deeply affect the Royalhousehold.

___

A MEDICAL MAN v. THE GOVERNMENT OFWESTERN AUSTRALIA.

IT is always gratifying to us to record the vindication ofan injured medical man, and the gratification is greater inproportion to the strength of his enemies and the delay in hisredress. A striking case of the sort is related in several copiesof the West Australian (Perth) papers. It is that of a

medical man, Mr. Henry Lionel Smith of Albany, who in1887 was acting medical officer of Albany, and in that

capacity was attending a boy named Webb and two or threeother patients in the old hospital there. Webb had colonialfever. The hospital had been sold to the West AustralianLand Company and the purchasers of it wanted it cleared bythe removal of the patients to the new hospital, a quarter ofa mile distant. Mr. Smith was only waiting for furniture inthe new hospital. The old hospital was surrounded by2. stone wall, the stone of which was wanted by theLand Company who had bought the ground. Mr. Smith

gave his consent to Mr. Castledine, clerk of works to

the Land Company, for the removal of this wall on I

the understanding that there was to be no interference with the main building in which the three patients were in chargeof an orderly. Instead of this the Land Company partlydemolished a lean-to wall, thus impairing the building itself,and worse still, after Mr. Smith’s visit, proceeded to removedoors. The night following was windy and wet and the boyWebb got congestion of the lungs and was so much worse asto necessitate his removal the next day to the new hospital,in which he died. He was removed with great care byMr. Smith, assisted by Mr. Stewart.

"

Mr. Smith certifiedhis death to have been caused by congestion of the lungsand suggested an inquest to the resident magistrate.The first day the inquest was conducted by the policesergeant, the second day by the coroner, Mr. Bailey,who was also manager of the Union Bank. The juryconsisted of three persons--all which arrangements seem tous very curious where conduct and character turn, as well asquestions of cause of death. The verdict of the jury was asfollows : " We are of opinion that Joseph Webb came to hisdeath from congestion of the lungs accelerated by undueexposure, and we consider there is no blame attached to theLand Company, but that Mr. Castledine exceeded his instruc-tions in pulling down the hospital door and not replacing it.And we also consider the after-consequences arose entirely

from Dr. Smith giving permission to pull down the hospitalbefore all the patients were removed, and that the orderlyhas been guilty of gross neglect of duty." This permissionwas exactly that which Mr. Smith had not given. About twomonths after Mr. Smith received a communication from theColonial Secretary enclosing a minute from Governor Broome,dated July 19th, commenting on the circumstances attendingthe death of Webb and directing plaintiff’s dismissal, thedismissal to take effect at the end of 1888. Mr. Smithremonstrated with Dr. Waylen, the chief of the medical

department, and with the governor, and finally ap-pealed to the Secretary of State, with no furthereffect than to prolong his dismissal into 1889. Nothingremained for him but to enter an action by petition ofright to recover 1000 damages from the Government forwrongful dismissal. The Government threw every obstacle in

his way, even to pleading an infringement of the Royal pre-rogative. The Attorney-General was against him in the trialand exhausted every argument and theory to defeat his claim.The Chief Justice took a clear position and stuck to it, butthe jury gave a verdict in Mr. Smith’s favour and assessed thedamages at £200. The Attorney-General again sought toreverse the verdict, on the motion of the plaintiff’s counsel tohave judgment entered for him, but his Honour was unmovable.He admitted the Crown could do almost anything. It coulddismiss without notice and without giving reasons, but if itdismissed a man and gave a cause reflecting on his characterhe had a right to appeal to the public and to go to the jury.He thought the jury had judged rightly, and refused to inter-fere with the verdict, though he granted stay of execution at therequest of the Attorney-General, that he (the Attorney-General)might appeal to a full court as to the right of the Governmentto dismiss a servant and abuse that servant with impunity.We desire to concede great rights to Governments and to theCrown for public purposes, but we draw the line at the rightto cast a slur on faithful public servants and so to injurethem and their reputation for life. Mr. Smith deserves thethanks of the profession and even of the public for his doggedfight with the Government of Western Australia in defencenot only of his own character, but of a great public principle,and is entitled to congratulations on his success.

THE PROOF OF DEATH.

THE minds of some persons are haunted by a persistentfear lest their bodies should be buried alive — fearwhich is happily almost entirely destitute of any rationalexcuse. The aspect of death is in every way so dif-

ferent from that of life that it needs no skilled inspec-tion to distinguish it. This is the rule, and one broken butvery rarely by an exception. Occasionally, however, somedifficulty has arisen even as regards this primary distinction.A case recently reported may be mentioned in illustration.A newly born infant of poor vitality, whose mother died inher confinement, had after a short time apparently diedalso, and was actually coffined when a cry revealed the

fact that it still breathed. Later on the same day thevital flicker again appeared to be extinguished, but this

time the care of the medical attendant prevented the

occurrence of any mistake as to its existence. It hasbeen suggested that in order to guard against the pos-sibility of any such disastrous oversight in future no

certificate of death shall be given except after personal in-spection of the deceased by a medical man. We do not knowof any objection to this proposal. On the contrary it hasmuch to recommend it. The ordinary signs of death do notrequire any full explanation on our part. It is worth while to

note, however, that such a case as that referred to aboveis exactly of the kind in which especial care should be exer-cised as regards this matter. It is where extreme feeblenessresults in a state of torpor continuing perhaps for days