THE APOTHECARIES' SOCIETY AND THE PHYSICK GARDEN

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principal culprit is in such a case usually an idle task, and onefor which our intimate relation with the profession of medi-cine, upon which the arts of the quack are popularly supposedto trench, is a positive disqualification. But we hope thatby calling attention to the means by which this evil lives andspreads we may do something to detach the more reputableof those organs of the press which an over-easy system of con-ducting the business of journalism makes aiders and abettorsof the quack.

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THE APOTHECARIES’ SOCIETY AND THEPHYSICK GARDEN.

No proverb is less true than that which attempts to justifythe accuracy of vague rumour by allusion to the connexionbetween smoke and fire, and it is quite possible that thoseresponsible for the financial policy of the Apothecaries’Society have never entertained any project whatever for thesale of their historic inheritance, the Physick Garden at

Chelsea, despite the statements that have widely creditedthem with that intention. At any rate, it is now denied

that any such project exists. A contemporary points outthat the Apothecaries’ Society have no power to sell the

Physick Garden. This is not quite accurate, but we canreassure the numerous people who would view the trans-

formation of Sir Hans Sloane’s herbarium into Chelsea

mansions with but qualified approval- such as the

past students of the Garden, the tenants of the

neighbouring houses, and the archasologically-minded in

the ancient suburb and elsewhere -that their appre-hensions need not be very acute, as many formalities haveto be gone through before the Physick Garden can becomea red-brick terrace. The Apothecaries’ Society hold theirproperty subject to certain conditions laid down in the willof the late Sir Hans Sloane, and he has indicated the coursewhich they must pursue in the event of their desiring to disposeof it. They can sell their property, but they cannot approachthe courts for the necessary powers or treat with private pur-chasers without discharging the conditions.

MEDICAL VERSUS LEGAL CORONERS.

A CORRESPONDENCE has recently appeared in the WesternChronicle under the heading of Election of Coroner-Doctoror Lawyer ? " A letter signed Common Sense " shows howlarge are the discretionary powers exercised by coroners andhow important it is, for this reason alone, that every coronershould have had a medical training. The writer quotes figuresto show that one coroner held in one year 799 inquests andin 897 cases which were referred to him he held merelyinformal inquiries concluding that inquests were unnecessary.Moreover, in each of these cases he sent notice to the registrarof deaths that he did not consider it to be necessary to holdan inquest, and also sent him his opinion as to the causeof death. In other words, the coroner, who was a memberof the legal profession, decided in 53 per cent. of the

cases referred to him that an inquest was unnecessary,and in all these cases comprising the majority of the

total gave a certificate of the cause of death. That the

training of a solicitor or barrister does not comprise a Imedical training is well known, and the utter absurdity

of anyone who has had a mere legal training taking inhand such purely medical functions is evident. Sooner orlater this must become manifest to all city and countycouncillors. Meanwhile we may point out another factof great significance, which may even carry greater weightwith some councillors than the weightiest reasons in favourof medical coroners. Until the passing of the Coroners’Act of 1892 it was required by the Municipal CorporationsAct that the deputy coroner for any municipal corporatetown or city should be a barrister or a solicitor. This gave acertain amount of plausibility to the argument that thecoroner should be a barrister or a solicitor, though in fact the

coroner might be any fit person without being required tobelong to any profession at all. The Act of 1892 has, how-ever, changed this, and removed even this flimsy excusefor appointing a legal coroner. Henceforth the deputy-coroner for every municipal town or city may be likethe coroner or the deputy-coroner for the county, anyfit person, and even those who may not be prepared to go withus the full length of holding that an experienced medicalpractitioner is the most fit person will hardly deny the factthat he is a fit person. Another very important changebrought about by this Act of 1892 is that the deputy-coronermay act after the death of the coroner for a period not exceed-ing three months. The city or county councillors may also deferthe election of coroner for that period. Hence the electionof coroner will probably not be in future the very hasty matterwhich it has been in the past; and the three months’ intervalwill give ample time for fully discussing the claims of medicalcandidates and for duly weighing their merits against thoseof their legal opponents. It is with great satisfaction that wenotice the candidature of one or more medical practitionersfor each vacant coronership. As has been before noticed inTHE LANCET the proportion of medical coroners in Ireland isdouble that of those in England, the proportion in the formerbeing one-third, in the latter one-sixth. Care shouldbe taken that not more than one medical candidate goesbefore the Council for final election, so as not to divide thevotes. The claims of medical candidates are being considerednow more attentively than they ever were before, and therewas never a more favourable time than the present for thecandidature of medical claimants for the office. We hopethat every vacancy will have its medical candidate, and thatwe shall have the pleasure of frequently noticing ’’ anothermedical coroner."

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THE LATE MR. CHARLES JENNER.

How far a life devoted primarily to business may in itsafter stages prove helpful to science and nobly responsive tophilanthropy has been well illustrated by Mr. Charles Jenner,who died on Friday, Oct. 27th, at his residence near

Edinburgh. Considerably senior to his distinguished brother,Sir William Jenner, he retired from the commercial career

comparatively early and gave up his fine mental gifts and hishumanely inspired energies to the acquisition and diffusion ofknowledge and to the rehabilitation, material and moral, ofthe labouring poor. For both objects he drew unstintingly onthe ample means he had honourably amassed, and was at oncea generous and a judicious giver. He had made himself an

authority in more than one field of natural science, and in botanyparticularly had few equals in its cryptogamic department.The Transactions of the Edinburgh Botanical Society oweseveral valuable papers to him ; while his Scientific Garden "

at Easter Duddingston Lodge, near Portobello, afforded aseries of object-lessons in acclimatisation as interesting andinstructive as their ornamental setting, " so to speak, wasattractive and picturesque. A well-written account of it byMr. John Lindsay, of the Royal Botanic Garden at Edin-burgb, though printed only for private distribution, found itsway to many a cultured student whose subsequent visits tothe demesne enhanced his admiration of the ’’ Garden" itselfand of the learning and liberality of its hospitable possessorBut it is as the chief promoter, if not the actual originator,of the ’Working Man’s Flower Show, with help from Wife andChild, that he endeared himself to the poor in populouscity pent " and gave the solace of acquired and refined tastesto many lives otherwise familiar only with the unlovelieraspects of labour. Of this beautifully humanitarian work wehave already given some account, and we have reason to knowthat the good seed he has sown in the wynds and courts of the

1 THE LANCET, Aug. 27th, 1892.