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ever recurrent theme of the foreign doctors. TheOrder of Porto Maurizio raised the question of thefacility with which foreign doctors could obtain the’l’ivalida of their diplomas, and hence the right topractise freely in Italy. The council decided tocall once more the attention of the medicalfaculties of Italy to the necessity of being verysevere and careful in the concession of the rivalidafor the due protection of the Italian medical pro-fession, and especially in defence of the dignity ofItalian science.

Medical Biography.The Istituto Micrografico Italiano is bringing out

under the auspices of the Societa Italiana di StoriaCritica della Medicina e delle Scienze Naturali aseries of lives of celebrated Italian physicians andnaturalists. The first volume, upon the life andwork of Bartolomeo Eustachi, has just been issued.It is a small book of 80 pages and is published at1 lira. Others promised include Valsalva, Morgagni,and Aulus Cornelius Celsus.

Jan. 15th.

SOUTH AFRICA.

Medical Department, South African Defence Force.REGULATIONS providing for a Medical Department

of the South African Defence Force have just beenpromulgated. The Department is to consist ofthree sections, the Permanent Force Section, theCitizen Force Section, and a Voluntary Aid Section.The Permanent Force Section is to consist of a staff

officer for medical services at defence headquarters,a medical officer in charge of a medical trainingschool, staff medical officers, including medical staffquartermasters and subordinate staff-viz., hospitalstaff sergeant-majors, hospital staff sergeants, hos-pital sergeants, hospital corporals, and hospitalorderlies. Officers of the Medical Department areto be members of the Permanent Force (staff), andwill be graded as first, second, or third grade staffofficers with the pay assigned to those grades, andrank as follows: First grade, major or lieutenant-colonel ; second grade, captain or major; thirdgrade, lieutenant or captain. The staff officer formedical services may also be required to under-take the duties of an assistant medical officerof health for the Union on such conditionsand at such rate of emoluments as the Govern-ment may decide. Medical staff quartermasterswill be first class or second class with payaccordingly. Those of the first class are tohold the rank of captain; of the second class therank of lieutenant. The subordinate staff will berecruited as far as practicable from the non-com-missioned ranks of the Permanent Force, any ofwhom below the rank of sergeant, after undergoinga prescribed course of instruction in medicalduties, may be required to serve for one year ashospital orderlies, one year as hospital corporals,making a total of two years in the Medical Depart-ment, and three years as hospital sergeants.Appointments as hospital sergeant-majors willbe made from those hospital sergeants whohave passed a qualifying examination for the

higher appointment, and these will have the rankof warrant officers. Hospital orderlies and corporalswho are returned to regimental duty, at the con-clusion of their periods of appointment as such,may receive medical staff pay (non-pensionable)at the rate of 6d. a day so long as they holdregimental rank not higher than corporal and

provided they come up for, and qualify annually at,a refresher course of medical training.

The scheme sounds well enough, but is not diffi.cult to criticise. First, the force is to be under a layofficer, the Inspector-General, who, although doubt.less guided by the staff officer for medical services,cannot be expected to appreciate medical needs orrequirements, and apparently even his adviser mayat any moment be taken away from him to act asan assistant medical officer of health for the Union,In the second place it must to great extent be a paperforce, for the Permanent Defence Force are reallymounted policemen scattered throughout thefrontier districts of the Union. At any rate, thefive regiments are so broken up into smallunits that there will seldom be any consider.able aggregation of its members except in timeof civil commotion or war-certainly not enoughat any time to warrant the establishment ofa military hospital for the sick and the training oforderlies and hospital officers of different grades.The citizen force section is apparently " on its

own" in each district, and is directly under the Com.mandant General, who presumably will be advisedalso by the staff officer for medical services. Itprovides for an assistant director of medicalservices being appointed for each military districtor for a group of military districts to take commandand supervise the technical training of the personneland units of the Citizen Force Section detailed formedical services in that district or group of districts,and to advise as required upon all matters con.nected with the medical and sanitation services ofthe Coast Garrison and Citizen Forces in thatdistrict. Deputy assistant directors of medicalservices may be appointed for any military districtor subdivision thereof as sanitation officers, andto assist generally the assistant directors intheir duties. Assistant directors may be grantedthe rank of lieutenant-colonel, deputy assistantsthe rank of major. Except in case of ap.pointments as assistant and deputy assistantdirectors of medical services, first appointments tocommissions as medical officers will be made to therank of captain. In no case is a person to be

eligible for appointment as a medical officer unlesshe is registered under one of the Medical Acts inforce in the Union and is between the ages of 21and 35 years. Within two years of first appoint.ment a medical officer will be required to attend atthe medical training school for a period of one

month, during which a course in the followingsubjects will be undergone : the South AfricaDefence Act and regulations framed thereunderand the Union military discipline code, theduties and powers of medical officers, medicalorganisation, administration and equipment, map-reading and elementary tactics, military sanitation,and Part 4 Royal Army Medical Corps Training.Promotion examinations in other than professionalsubjects will have to be passed before captains canbe promoted to majors, and promotion to the rankof lieutenant-colonel will only be given when thereare vacancies on the establishment of that rank,and will be made by selection from the rank ofmajors who have qualified for that rank by exami.nation. Any medical practitioner is eligible toserve in the Reserve of Officers without havingpreviously held commissioned rank, and on appoint.ment he may be given such rank not below therank of captain as may be considered suitable to hisposition and standing. Officers will draw the payand allowances of their rank as prescribed inthe regulations for pay and allowances, ActiveCitizen Force. During periods of continuoustraining and on such other occasions as may

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be authorised by the Minister, medical officers

may draw, in addition to any pay or allow-ance due to them under those regulations, amedical staff allowance at’ the rate of JE1 10s. perdiem, presumably to cover the cost of a locum-tenent. During attendance at special courses at

the medical training school or elsewhere medicalstaff allowance at one half of this rate may be

granted, provided the prescribed certificates are

obtained. The provisions generally for the CitizenForce section are very elaborate and may or maynot prove workable, but the general opinion that isheld amongst those competent to judge is that theyare unsuitable for South Africa.

Appointments in Permanent Force : MedicalDepartment.

Dr. P. G. Stock, formerly assistant medical officerof health of Johannesburg, has been appointedStaff Officer for Medical Services, with the rank ofMajor. Lieutenant-Colonel G. H. Knapp, formerlyprincipal medical officer, Cape Colonial Forces, hasbeen appointed Lieutenant-Colonel in the MedicalDepartment Permanent Force, whilst Surgeon-Captain F. H. Walsh, formerly in the Cape MountedRifles, and Staff-Surgeon H. R. Brown, of theNatal Police, are appointed Captains in the samedepartment.Dec. 15th, 1913.

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Obituary.HENRY ALBERT REEVES, F.R.C.S. EDIN.

THE death occurred on Jan. 16th, at the age of73, of Mr. Henry Albert Reeves, late of Grosvenor-street, London, W., formerly assistant surgeon atthe London Hospital, surgeon to the Royal Ortho-paedic Hospital, Oxford-street, the Hospital forWomen, Soho-square, and the Hospital for Womenand Children, Shadwell.Mr. Reeves s best work, both general and special,

was done some years ago, and his name, save tothose acquainted with his writings, is now no

longer familiar. But in his day he was a well-known operating surgeon. His " Human Morpho-logy," published in 1879, was said by the Saturday Rev.iew to be the " finest book ever published onthe subject in this or any language," and his"Bodily Deformities" is also a notable work. In

operative surgery (he was ambidextrous) heattained to high proficiency, and when he finallyconcentrated on orthopaedics, resigning all other

appointments to do so, he was recognised as

an authority on the subject. But differences of

opinion at the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital as to

selling the site and amalgamating with the Ortho-paedic Hospital in Great Portland-street, of whichhe strongly disapproved, led to the severing of hisconnexion with this institution, much to its loss,as, apart from his skill, he was greatly loved by hispatients, especially those of the poorer classes.A personal friend writes: " Mr. Reeves was

always a lover of books, and gradually he aban-doned himself almost entirely to their study. Withan immense library, in five different languages, towhich he was constantly adding, few scientific andthoughtful books that were published did not comeunder his ken, and in his search for truth possiblyhis investigations covered too vast a field for hisown advantage. But his erudition was enormous,and latterly he had devoted his whole attention toa scientific study and sifting of all the religions of

the world, of which he probably knew as much asany man living, and his book on the subject wasalmost ready for publication when it was stoppedby the illness that attacked him a year ago andended fatally last week."Mr. Reeves was married to the well-known

novelist, Helen Mathers.

ALEXANDER S. L. NEWINGTON, M.B. CANTAB.,M.R,C.S.ENG.

ON Jan. 17th, while driving his car near Ticehurst,Sussex, Dr. Alexander Newington met with an

accident and sustained injuries which were rapidlyfatal. He had put the brakes hard on to avoidcolliding with a motor-dray and the skid threw himfrom his seat into the road upon his head.Alexander Samuel Lysaght Newington was born

in 1846, the son of Dr. Samuel Newington. His

grandfather was the founder of the well-known

private asylum for the insane at Ticehurst, and hisfather succeeded in due course to its management.He was educated at Bromsgrove School and as alad went to India as a planter, but after five yearshe returned to England and entered at Caius College,Cambridge. Having practised rifle-shooting in Indiahe was soon a member of the University team, andwon many prizes. Proceeding to St. Thomas’s Hos.pital he qualified as M.R.C.S. in 1874, and becamehouse physician to the famous Murchison. Inthe following year he took the degree of M.B. Cantab.,and settled down in a village practice in Oxfordshire.About the same date he married Gertrude, eldestdaughter of the late Dr. Robert Barnes, one of theleading obstetricians of that day.A few years later, in the early "eighties," Dr.

Alexander Newington returned to Ticehurst as

physician to his father’s asylum, and from that timeuntil his death he remained associated with it. Atone time a brother, Mr. Theodore Newington, wasalso on the medical staff there, but latterly Dr.Alexander Newington and his cousin, Mr. H. F.Hayes Newington, have been the joint proprietorsof, and physicians to, the asylum.

Dr. Alexander Newington had been an enthu-siastic motorist since the earliest days, and wasamong the first medical men in this countryto own a car. His interest in this subjectwas always keen, and he had a thorough know-ledge of the mechanism and design of cars, acquiredin the days when road repairs were an almostdaily necessity. He was a most experienceddriver. He contributed little to professionalliterature, but his hereditary bent towardsalienism was shown by his choice of a subjectfor a graduation thesis-puerperal insanity. Mrs.

Newington survives him ; there is no issue of themarriage.

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DEATHS OF EMINENT FOREIGN MEDICAL MEN.-Thedeaths of the following eminent foreign medical men

are announced :-Dr. E. Ponfick, of Breslau, PrivyMedical Councillor.-Dr. E. Cohn, of Frankfort, PrivyMedical Councillor.-Dr. T. H. Knoll, of Aix-la-Chapelle,Sanitary Councillor.-Dr. John G. Cecil, formerly pro-fessor of medicine in the University of Louisville.-Dr.A. Tesson, formerly professor of chemistry and toxico-logy in the Angers Medical School.-Dr. E. Baudri-mont, formerly surgeon to the Bordeaux hospitals-Dr. Gustav Pfalz, dooent of ophthalmology in the MedicalAcademy of Dusseldorf and president of the Rhine MedicalAssociation, aged 55.-Dr. Hans von Wyss, privat- docent ofmedicine in the University of Zürich.-Dr. Wentscher, ofThorn. Privy Medical Councillor, a prominent official of theGerman Medical Association, aged 62.-Dr. Springeld, of