THE BIRTHDAY HONOURS
Transcript of THE BIRTHDAY HONOURS
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he begins to discover its solace. For here he becomes able
to judge, as no other man can, of their relative sig-nificance. He does not share the pity that runs throughthe crowd as some chalk-faced patient, with his arm in a
sling, walks slowly and painfully along the pavement, forhis prophetic instinct shows him this same man, two or
three months hence, wielding a spade or hunting four days aweek, leading, in fact, a perfectly healthy physical existencein accordance with the sphere in which he lives. On the
other hand, the woman with the curious red spot upon her
face, half hidden by hair and a veil, affords him a
far more sombre chapter for reflection. For whether it be
lupus, or epithelioma, or a rodent ulcer, and whether it
be treated or not, it will have meant, when these same
months have passed, a far greater obsession of bodily andmental pain than that of any broken limb. Such cases
as these are fairly balanced and the medical man has no
greater distress in his perambulations of the streets than the
average observant layman, only he pities those whom the
layman does not observe, and sees no great hardship in the
plights that must appeal to the uninitiated.In the last of the pathological groups to which we shall
refer the medical man’s knowledge is really useful. For we
must all know the picture of the chronic invalid and cripplewho year by year drags his deformed limbs before the
pitying eyes (and purses) of his fellow-citizens and it
is not difficult to imagine the feelings that are harrowed
by so sorry a sight. As often as not, too, these victimswear an expression of the profoundest suffering which
may impose upon many but cannot often deceive the
trained eye. To the medical man it is perfectly evidentthat these ankylosed joints can have caused no painfor years. He recognises some old tuberculous trouble,arrested long ago, and never likely to recur unless
the misguided patient shall submit to a so-called cure
at the hands of a bone-setter, who will break down
the adhesions and light up the old trouble afresh at
the expense of an apparently straightened limb. The
medical man, again, can tell very quickly that these con-
genitally dislocated hips are no warrant at all for the
anguished look of their possessor whose abilities for the
enjoyment of life are probably as great as those of mostof his commiserators. Such cases as these, and they aretoo common upon our streets, cause the medical man to
smle rather than to sigh and here his education will sparehim many of the pangs that assault the softer-hearted of
his comrades. And so the streets stretch out before him
an infinite field for research and wonder and filled with all
manner of substance for meditation. And with it all it is
well to remember the exuberant sea of vitality that must
abundantly overwhelm the pathological, even in the streetsof London. And, doing so, the medical man of to-day willhesitate perhaps to subscribe to the opinion of old Sir
THOMAS BROWNE in his " Religio Medici," that the world is’’ not an inn, but an hospital ; and a place not to live, butto die in."
1. ING’S COLLEGE HOSPITAL -The executors andtrustees of the late Miss Marianne Frances Hasker have
promised a donation of £20,000 towards the fund for theremoval of King’s College Hospital to South London.
Annotations."Ne quid nimis."
THE BIRTHDAY HONOURS.
Professor T. McCall Anderson, Mr. T. F. Chavasse, Dr.P. S. Jones, Dr. W. J. Smyly, and Dr. E. S. Stevenson haveeach had conferred upon them the honour of knighthood.Professor Thomas McCall Ander.-on, who is Regius professorof medicine at the University of Glasgow and the representa-tive of his alma mater on the General Medical Council,graduated M.D. of Glasgow with honours in 1858 andobtained the Fellowship of the Faculty of Physicians andSurgeons of Glasgow in the same year. As the dean ofthe Medical Faculty of the University of Glasgow and asexaminer in medicine and pathology to the Army MedicalService and the Indian Medical Service he has done goodwork in the interest of his profession and is the authorof several books on cutaneous diseases and tuberculosis.Mr. Thomas Frederick Chavasse, the senior surgeon of
the Birmingham General Hospital, is a justice of the
peace for the county o’f Warwick. He graduatedM.D. of Edinburgh in 1878 and obtained the Fellowshipof the Royal College of Surgeons of that city in the
same year and was made a Fellow of the Royal Collegeof Surgeons of England, honoris cacnsa, in 1899. He is
the author of various surgical monographs and has
been a frequent contributor to the medical press. Dr.
William Josiah Smyly, President of the Royal Collegeof Physicians of Ireland, graduated M.D. of Trinity College,Dublin, in 1875, and became a Fellow of the College of
which he is now President in 1884, having obtained the Fellow-ship of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland in 1877.He is a contributor to Allbutt and Playfair’s System of
Gynaecology and Quain’s Dictionary of Medicine. Dr. PhilipSydney Jones, M.D. Lond., F.R.C.S. Eng., is honorary eon-sulting physician to Prince Alfred Hospital and to SydneyHospital, Australia, and Dr. Edmond Sinclair Stevenson, M.D.Brux., F.R.C.S. Edin., is a member of the medical council ofthe Colony of the Cape of Good Hope. The military branchof the medical profession is represented by Surgeon-GeneralCharles McDonagh Cuffe, C.B., who has been promoted toKnight Commander of the Bath ; Surgeon-Major ThomasEgerton Hale, V.C., a survivor of the Crimean War, andSurgeon-General William Launcelot Gubbins, M.V.O.,Principal Medical Officer of the Western Command in
India, who have been made Companions of the Bath ; andColonel David Bruce, F.R.S., R.A.M.C., and Lieutenant-Colonel and Hon. Colonel William Coates, R.A.M.C.
Volunteers, who also received similar honours in the civildivision. To each of these gentlemen we offer in the nameof the medical profession hearty congratulations.
PROPOSED CHARTER FOR THE BRITISHMEDICAL ASSOCIATION.
THE annual representative meeting in Oxford last yearinstructed the council of the British Medical Associationto take the steps necessary to obtain the alterations in
the memorandum of association contained in the Birming-ham resolutions, subject to such modifications as mightbe required to harmonise them with the present articles.One of the Birmingham resolutions would have givenpower to the Association to expend money for the
defence, promotion, or maintenance of the honour or
interests -of the medical profession, including in particulartaking or defending legal proceedings. The matter was