A SKILLED ABORTIONIST

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.process:but was probably the result of a damming-up of fluidsuch as occurs in cases of cerebral tumour. The significanceof the sugar reaction is difficult to estimate. Coagulationof fluid probably indicates inflammatory affection, and itsabsence, tumour or hydrocephalus. Turbid fluid withnumerous cells is in favour of purulent or chronic meningitis,although the fact that the fluid is clear does not necessarilynegative such a diagnosis. Repeated withdrawal of blood-stained fluid probably indicates ventricular haemorrhage,possibly bleeding into the subdural space. Tubercle bacilli,of course, indicate tuberculous meningitis and puncturemakes it possible to diagnose acute serous meningitis. As to

the therapeutic effect of the operation Professor Goldscheiderthinks that in certain cases distinct improvement is to beexpected. In conclusion the accidents that may be caused

by spinal puncture are enumerated, especially such as maybe caused by too rapid or too complete withdrawal of fluid.

A SKILLED ABORTIONIST.

ONE of the disgracers of his profession received his desertsat the Central Criminal Court on Jan. 18th in the shape ofa sentence of seven years’ penal servitude. His name was

James Charles Ady and it will be remembered that a littletime ago he, in conjunction with a woman calling herselfGraham, brought an action against the Sun which was

dismissed. Ady’s name was then removed from the

Medical Register and on Dec. 13th, 1897, Graham wassentenced to a term of imprisonment for illegal practicesat Edinburgh. The offence for which Ady was sentencedon Tuesday was attempting to procure abortion and alsofor conspiracy to perform illegal actions. His fellow-con-

spirator was a man named Tomasso and both scoundrelsreceived the same sentence. As the judge remarked, it isthe very skill of men like the prisoners that makes themso dangerous and everyone will agree that their punishmentis in no way too heavy.

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INTELLECT AND FUN.

THE author of "Alice in Wonderland" is dead, to the

supreme regret of those who knew him and of those to whomhe was a stranger personally. It has apparently surprisedmany of those called on to write biographical notices of himin our contemporaries to find that the author of the best bookfor children in the English language was a college don, alecturer and writer on higher mathematics. Some have even

gone so far as to hint that Lewis Carroll mistook the vocationof Charles Lutwidge Dodgson when he allowed that little-known person to write on mathematics at all. And yetas a mathematical writer and teacher Mr. Dodgson wasneither unsuccessful nor obscure, and there is nothingin the fact of a man being able to fascinate the world ofchildhood to disqualify him from the possession of intellectof a high order. It may be the case that not many mathe-maticians care to amuse children. The same may be saidof grown men in any class of intellectual workers and itmust be added that fewer still have published their workin such directions. The Christchurch don was devotedto children and especially popular in the family of the

famous Dean who has just passed away at the ripeage of eighty-seven. In this congenial circle he told

stories such as his clever brain devised, and grown-up people who heard them and saw how thoroughlythey had captured the imagination of the children

urged him to publish the stories. He did so with theeresult that the pseudonym under which he veiled themathematical tutor became one of the most widely famousnames in Victorian literature. That a man because he isdevoted to mathematics must be destitute of humour can

hardly be said. Professor Kingdon Clifford published oneor two little parables well calculated to amuse children

if not so famous as the Adventures of Alice or as the

Hunting of the Snark. Augustus De Morgan in his Budgetof Paradoxes made others besides mathematicians smileover the amazing communications made to him by thosewith mathematical bees in their bonnets. Professor De

Morgan’s work is not for children, nor is it a fairy tale anymore than the Mathematical Diversions of Mr. Walter RouseBall of more modern date, but both teem with humour. Dr.Edwin Abbott, at the time head master of the City ofLondon School, a senior classic and a Hulsean Lecturer,was guilty of an excellent piece of mathematical foolingentitled Flat Land, a Romance of Many Dimensions. Goodfairy tales are very rare. If out of the pile of elaboratelygot-up works circulated each Christmas we try readingto a child we soon fall back in despair upon Grimm,Andersen, Lewis Carroll, Kingsley’s Water Babies, and

very likely upon Tales at Tea Time by Mr. Knatchbnll.Hugessen (afterwards Lord Brabourne), a hard-workingpolitician who declared that he composed them during dulldebates in the House of Commons, and admitted that mostof the debates being dull he was afforded plenty of oppor-tunity. We may even find what we want written by alawyer, and a county-court judge at that, in the Historyof Katawampus by his Honour Judge Parry. Lewis Carrollis dead, the creator of Alice; the Rev. Charles Dodgson isdead, the author of A Syllubus of Plane AlgebraicalGeometry and similar works; and the world is the poorer;but let us not be surprised to find that high intelligenceis compatible with humour, love of children, and sympathywith their mirth.

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THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY AND THESTUDENTS OF LONDON HOSPITAL.

’, ON the 11th inst. the Archbishop of Canterbury visited

the London Hospital in connexion with the London HospitalChristian Association which is connected with the Medical

Prayer Union. The Archbishop delivered an address to a

large number of students and members of the medicalstaff. In doing so the Archbishop made good use of his

great office and set an excellent example to other ministersof religion. Many of these, we fear, are apt to regardmedical men as an unresponsive audience. The existence ofsuch Christian associations in our hospitals and the supportwhich they have from some of our leading physicians andsurgeons might make men pause in entertaining such notionsof the profession to which Sir Thomas Browne, HenryVaughan, and Dr. Abercrombie belonged. The mistake isa great one, for there are no men more ready to regard themoral and religious side of human nature or more capableof doing so than the members of the medical profession.They of all men see proofs of the unsatisfying nature

of mere physical and natural good and are glad of anyencouragement or help to cultivate the religious side oftruth. The Archbishop did full justice to the medical

profession and to the study to which it is addicted as

one great means of getting at truth. He thought the

study of the human body a glorious - occupation" "and one standing at the very head of all natural studies.Even astronomy was not, after all, either in importance or

promise for the future, to be put by the side of the study ofthe human body. He recognised generously the greatprogress such study had made of recent years and thebeneficent purposes to which it had been applied. Healso showed much belief in the future of the study ofmedicine and anticipated a time when the present pro-gress would be spoken of as comparatively very small.Still, as in duty bound, he showed the limitationsof our knowledge of truth as it enters through the

senses and pointed out the temptations of the students of ’

nature to neglect the testimony of corscience and of thespiritual faculty within us and urged them to conduct "thei