THE DOWNING PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE
Transcript of THE DOWNING PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE
624 THE DIFFUSION OF SMALL-POX.
4. Of Attendance on Labours. - A certificate, signed Iby a proper authority, of having attended twentylabours in the maternity department of a recognisedmedical school, or the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin, or
of having attended thirty cases under the supervision of aregistered medical practitioner and having been present at thebirths. It is needless to say that we have nothing but com-mendation for regulations so obviously aimed at securingpractical work from the candidates in departments wherepractical work has hitherto, not only in the University ofOxford, been an element considerably lacking.
THE DIFFUSION OF SMALL-POX.
DURING last week 15 fresh attacks by small-pox wererecorded in London and 1 death was registered from thedisease, 17 patients being admitted to hospital during theweek, against 17 and 18 in the preceding two weeks. Therewere 68 patients under treatment on Sunday last in the
Metropolitan Asylums Board Institutions and 16 in the
Highgate Small-pox Hospital, making a total of 84, against 81on the previous Sunday. A rise from 9 to 21 cases waswitnessed last week in West Ham, double the latter numberof attacks having been recorded in East Ham during February. In Bristol 13 cases and 1 death occurred ; Wal-sall and Handsworth, Staffordshire, had each 7 attacks ; Bir-mingham, 61 cases and 7 deaths ; Aston Manor, 9 cases ;Manchester, 4 cases, after a week of freedom from the
disease; Oldham, 12 cases ; and Bradford 14 attacks, with1 death. Other towns had cases of small-pox in smaller
numbers. During the four weeks of February the heaviestlists of cases have been 253 in Birmingham, 64 in London,68 in West Ham, 51 in Oldham, 49 in Bradford, 46 in Bristol,and 42 in East Ham.
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SIMULTANEOUS INTRA-UTERINE AND EXTRA-UTERINE FŒTATION.
DR. JULIO ERNESTO VARGAS mentions in the RevistaMédica de Bogota a rare case of twins which gave rise to verycontradictory diagnoses and ended fatally. The patient wasa young woman employed in a cigar factory who had hadthree children. She complained of pain, weight, and discom- fort in the right iliac region and was supposed by the medicalmen, who saw her, to be suffering from salpingitis or anincipient uterine tumour. After a time, however, it was con-sidered that she was pregnant, and she was delivered of aseven months child which lived a month. The pain in theright iliac region continued, and when Dr. Vargas saw her hefound that though the neck of the uterus had closed therewere unmistakable signs of a second living foetus, and hehoped that it might be retained till its full time. The
patient soon afterwards sent for another medical attendant,who, detecting no signs of life, diagnosed a uterine fibroma,and proposed an operation, to which the woman would notconsent. Her condition, however, becoming worse, she sentagain for Dr. Vargas, who found her dying of peritonitis.At the necropsy a putrid foetus of about seven months wasfound in the peritoneal cavity, the uterus being quite normal.There must, therefore, have been a foetus both in the uterusand outside it, the former being born at about seven months,and the latter dying shortly afterwards.
THE DOWNING PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE.
THE election of Dr. Bradbury to the Downing Professor-ship of Medicine in the University of Cambridge, a post whichwas recently left vacant by the regretted retirement of Dr.Latham after a tenure of twenty years, must have beenalmost a foregone conclusion at the university, for Dr.
Bradbury had strong claims of a practical sort upon the
post. A Cambridge man and a distinguished graduate, he
has been connected for no less a time than a quarter of acentury with the university as an examiner and a lecturer.He was a foundation scholar of Downing College, havingmigrated there from that home of so many medical graduates,Gonville and Caius College, and graduated in 1864 as secondin the first class of the natural science tripos. He was
medical lecturer at the two colleges where he received
his education from 1866 to 1880, and also Linacre Lecture?in Physic at St. John’s College. He has examined for
the pass degrees in natural science at the university,.and also for the natural science tripos and for each
division of the examination for the medical doctorate,and has on three occasions acted as Assessor to the
Regius Professor of Physic. As a resident in the uni-
versity town and a popular consulting physician it is te.
be hoped that the depressed pecuniary position of thia
professorship, which has been treated by the press as an
open secret, will not bear so hardly upon Dr. Bradbury as it,would undoubtedly have done upon any candidate selected!
by the electors from outside the immediate university circle;but, in congratulating Dr. Bradbury upon his appointment,.we may be permitted to hope that both the professorship andithe college from which it draws its name will soon see betterpecuniary times. -
THE INDIAN MEDICAL CONGRESS.
WE have much pleasure in calling attention to the follow-ing intelligence extracted from the Indian Medical Gazettein regard to a matter which is likely to prove one of muchinterest and importance to the medical community generally,but especially to members of the profession practising ir;India and the East :-The proposal to have a Medical
Congress in India was considered at a meeting of the Councilof the Calcutta Medical Society on Jan. 24th, when it wasdecided that an Indian Medical Congress shall be held in,Calcutta at the beginning of January, 1895. The preliminaryarrangements were discussed and a general plan sketchedout. It was decided that in each province local secretaries. native as well as European, should be asked to cooperate:with the Calcutta secretaries, and it was further decided that,the sections into which the Congress should be divided:should be : (1) Medicine, including Pathology ; (2) Surgery ;.(3) Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children r;
(4) Public Health ; (5) Medico-legal Medicine and allied’
subjects. It was decided that all medical men practising inevery part of the world, but especially in India and the East,should be invited to take part in the Congress and submit;papers to be read in the different sections.
BURIAL OF THE LIVING.
As far as the western intelligence can judge from certain,recorded customs, public opinion in the Celestial Empire is.less disturbed than that of most other States by the sentiment.of humanity. Let us take in illustration but one instance.which has lately given occasion for comment in the dailypress-namely, that of the live burial of persons described’as either incurably diseased or incorrigibly ill-conducted.It would be difficult to find among the errors of mankinda parallel to this proceeding. The reader is uncertain whetherto treat it as a serious fact or to repudiate it forthwith as themere creation of some traveller’s fancy. Unfortunately we.are unable, in the face of positive assertions to the contrary byapparently reliable persons, to dispute its reality. According,to published accounts of this performance the victim is,theoretically, at all events, a consenting party, and the trans-action is carried out with abundant ceremony and in accord-ance with established usage. If this be true, we must.look upon the occurrence as nothing less than a national.
crime, or indeed as a double crime, in which murder isblended with suicide and both are for the time sanctioned,.