1318 LONDON COMMON LODGING-HOUSES.

bodies like oxalate of ammonium and oxalate of urea. With

regard to elementary biology, the synopsis of the ConjointBoard includes °’ (6) general and distinctive characters of

vertebrate animals, and (7) comparison of man’s structure

with that of other mammalia : " and it is evident that under

one or other of these heads almost any question in vertebrate

morphology can be asked. Such comprehensive headingsmake a synopsis useless ; and when it is remembered that

the fate of the candidate after six months’ careful work

will be determined by a vivâ-voce examination, lasting forten or fifteen minutes only, it will be obvious that the

result may be most unfair and may frequently prevent thestudent from pursuing a career for which he is excellentlyfitted. This is all the more likely to occur from the factthat to many of the candidates it will be their first experienceof vivâ-voce examination. Six months of theoretical and

practical work cannot be judged even with approximateaccuracy in ten minutes, while evidence of practical skill

must be taken into consideration before a proper estimate

can be arrived at. Practical pharmacy and elementaryanatomy should be kept widely apart from these scientificsubjects. We propose further to consider the whole question.

THE transference to the London County Council of theduties of regulating common lodging-houses now vested inthe Commissioners of Police is the proper sequel to the passingof the Housing of the Working Classes Act. Under this law

the County Council clears unhealthy areas and with a viewto ensuring the closing of houses unfit for human habitationis empowered to institute proceedings for this purpose if thedistrict authorities are negligent. It can, moreover, under

Part III. of this Act, provide and regulate lodging-houses for thelabouring classes and has, indeed, already provided one com-mon lodging-house. Under the Public Health (London) Act itcan proceed in default of any sanitary authority failing toregulate houses let in lodgings and hence it is already inintimate relation with work of a similar nature to that which

it will shortly undertake.London has hitherto been in an exceptional position, in so

far as its common lodging-houses are regulated by the

police. Throughout the rest of the country this duty devolvesupon the sanitary authorities, and when these authoritiesare also the police authority this duty is almost invariablyperformed by its health department. Even in that part ofthe Metropolitan Police District which is outside the limitsof the administrative county the police have for some timeceased to exercise control over common lodging-houses, andhence the contemplated change is nothing more than the

completion of a work which has for many years been reco-

gnised as desirable, but which has been delayed until a

representative body was created capable of controlling thisclass of premises.We observe that the St. Giles District Board has put

forward a claim to be the body to which the duty of

regulating common lodging-houses should be transferred.

This is not an unnatural contention of an authority alreadyempowered to register and make and enforce by-laws for thecontrol of houses let in lodgings. The supervision of commonlodging-houses is, however, a duty which it is not probablethat the Home Secretary would be prepared to imposenpon the London district authorities. These houses are

occupied by a peculiar section of the community, who are.

especially migratory in their habits, wandering from one partof the country to another and from one part of London tc

another, and, as has been recently shown, sometimes carryingthe infection of disease with them. It is, therefore, abso

lutely necessary that the houses which these people occupyshould be regulated with equal efficiency in all parts of themetropolis, and this, under existing circumstances, wouldnot be the case if London sanitary authorities as distin

guished from the County Council were responsible for thisbranch of administration. There is, indeed, so much advan -

tage in vesting this duty in a body having relation to thewhole metropolitan area that it is not probable that the

Secretary of State will alter his decision. The CountyCouncil’s intimate relation with London sanitary administra-tion and the thoroughness with which its public health duties.have hitherto been performed nark it out as especially thebody to which this duty should be entrusted.There is no suggestion in recommending this change that

the police have not, so far as the law allowed, done theirwork efficiently. It is probable, however, that when common

lodging-houses are more fully considered in their publichealth relations it will be found desirable to include under

similar regulations the numerous shelters which have recentlycome into existence and which occupy a position some-where between the ordinary common lodging-house and the-casual ward. For this purpose further legislation will

be required, which can be more readily obtained by a

representative authority. Again, perhaps larger powers of’control than the police exercise may be found to be neces-

sary for the purposes of London, and this, if the need car

be shown, will be more readily granted to the Council.

The proposed change, therefore, is one that is eminentlydesirable, and which, we trust, will not be unduly delayed.

y

Annotations.

THE TEACHING UNIVERSITY QUESTION INLONDON.

11 No quid nimis.1’

THE report of the Royal Commissioners with regard to tlie-formation of a Teaching University in London is under finalconsideration, and will probably be made public before the-Christmas vacation. It is generally understood that it willbe adverse to the founding of a special Teaching University,but will favour a very extensive transformation of the existingUniversity of London, so as if possible to enable it to add a

completely planned teaching side to its present examiningduties. Such a change involves the application for a newCharter for the University of London, and until the full detailsof the scheme are known it would be premature to discuss theprobable attitude of the various bodies interested-namely,University and King’s Colleges, the Medical Schools, and theSenate and Convocation of the University of London-andthe chance of a final settlement of the question being attained.We hope that the Commissioners have suggested a plan whichwill materially alter the present position of the Londonmedical student.

__

THE CARE OF THE WOUNDED IN WAR.

WE are glad to notice that at last something is to be doneto afford the Army Medical Staff an opportunity of obtaining"some practical knowledge of their field duties during war.

1319"PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS AS DEPICTED IN PLATO."

Mr. Campbell-Bannerman, in reply to a question in the Houseof Commons from Mr. D. Plunket, said that steps would betaken next summer to afford a fortnight’s practical instruc-tion in what, we would add, is the most essential and

important duty that the medical service can be called uponto perform. This is no question of grievance on the partof the medical staff; it has a much wider scope and signifi-cance than concerns the medical officers themselves, for it

gravely affects the national interests that the Army MedicalService should not be kept in a state of unreadiness for

war. There is no need to go into the subject further atthe present time, for in doing so we should only be repeatingourselves and stating what must, we imagine, be obvious toeveryone possessed of any forethought and common sense.That medical officers and men of the Medical Staff Corpsshould be thoroughly acquainted with the machinery theywill have to use in the field and be practised in the methodsof using it seems to be so self-evidentas to require nothingbeyond its bare statement to carry conviction with it. A

fortnight’s practical instruction is not very much, and itsutility will greatly depend upon its scale, its frequent repeti-tion, and on how it is carried out. In the meantime it

is, at any rate, a good beginning, and will afford medicalofficers an opportunity of actually seeing field hospitals andequipment, of which a large number of them, it is alleged,have only heard up to the present time.

"PHYSIC AND PHYSICIANS AS DEPICTED IN

PLATO."

UNDER this title Dr. Osler delivered an address before theHistorical Club of the Johns HopkinsHospital. The existenceof such a club, it appears to us, should fulfil a useful function.The engrossing cares of the present are somewhat inimical tothe development of the antiquarian bias in most instances;but by those who have the time and leisure to study carefullythe thoughtful gropings of the human mind in the dawn ofscience, among many conclusions which later observationmust reject, some gems of thought are frequently to be

gathered. The interdependence of all human effort is

also shown by this lecture, for the material uponwhich it was based was culled from the memorable workof that ripe scholar lately deceased, Benjamin Jowett of

Balliol College, Oxford. The anatomical and physiologicalideas of Plato, based as they largely were on speculationrather than on observation, are essentially Platonic, not

Aristotelian, notions, and they enchain us by the brilliancy of ’,imagination rather than by the solidity of their foundation.As another of our American confrères has remarked : "Thephilosophy of Plato is a gorgeous castle in the air ; that ofAristotle a solid structure, laboriously, and with manyfailures, founded on the solid rock." When, however,we leave the purely physical speculations of Plato andconsider his psychology we find that it has, as Dr. Osler

remarks, a "strangely modern savour." Nor need this

surprise us, for the operations of the human mind were opento observation, subjective and objective, ages before the

scientific investigation of the machine which the mind con-trols. The doctrine of the sound mind and sound bodybeing frequently related to one another was maintained byPlato with eloquence and reason ; and in his advocacy of theparamount influence of diet and regimen in the treatment ofdisease, as also in his condemnation of ’’ the purgativemethod," he would have the approval of many physicians ofthe present day. The Platonic method of descending fromthe general to the particular, of considering ;the wholewhen discussing the part, had as a wholesome corollary theregarding of each part of the body as related to the entiresystem. "Charmides had been complaining of a headache andCritias had asked Socrates to make believe that he could curehim of it. He said that he had a charm which he had learnt,

when serving in the army, from one of the physicians of theThracian King, Zamolxis. This physician had told Socratesthat the cure of the part should not be attempted withouttreatment of the whole, and also that no attempt should bemade to cure the body without the soul....... The charms towhich he referred were fair words, by which temperance wasimplanted in the soul." The status of the physician in Plato’sday seems to have been regulated according as he was aprivate practitioner or a " State physician, " and before hewas deemed to be worthy of the latter position it appears tohave been essential that he should have been in practice forsome time and have attained a considerable reputation-an.eminently rational desideratum not always demanded in thepresent day. As regards his classification, or what we may term.Court precedence, "the physician or lover of gymnastic toils"seems to have been placed fourth, and, it is needless to add,that in the Socratic system the philosopher ranked first. The

interpretation given to the dying words of Socrates, "Crito,we owe a cock to Esculapius,’’ is that thanks are due tothe patron of medicine from one who, by quaffing the fataldraught which robs him of mundane existence, is enabled to-realise the glories of the hereafter. Dr. Osler pays a warmtribute to Professor Jowett, whom he terms ’’ the great inter-preter of Plato to this generation," and, we may add, to

generations yet unborn. -

PROFESSIONAL EXCLUSIVENESS IN SWITZERLAND,

WE have commented more than once on the restrictions

imposed by the Swiss Confederation on the foreign-particu-larly the English-speaking-practitioner in its centres of

tourist resort-restrictions which make it illegal for a

British practitioner, however highly qualified, to prescribefor a compatriot unless provided with the Federal diploma.We pointed out that this unenlightened "protection" of

native work or skill would react injuriously on the resorts inquestion, dependent, as most of them mainly are, on the-

outside world for their prosperity. Our admonition, weare happy to think, has not been without effect. Morethan one canton has bethought itself of the unwisdomof deflecting the stream of travel past its borders to otherresorts where professional exclusiveness is unknown and, inone instance at least, has actually rescinded the law whichmade it illegal for a foreign practitioner to prescribe. TheCanton Ticino, at a late meeting of its Grand Council, has-taken an honourable initiative in abrogating the restrictionon non-Swiss medical men, and henceforth the possessionof a Federal diploma is not a sine quâ non for practice.The restriction, as we have already pointed out, weighedwith peculiar hardship on our Italian confrères, many ofwhose compatriots are domiciled in Switzerland ; whilethe Canton Ticino itself is so essentially Italian in popu-lation, in language, in customs, and in institutions thatit is only by a political accident that it is not includedin Italy. What this canton is to the Italian peninsulaLucerne and the Grisons are to the British Isles. Fora considerable portion of the year they are so completelyoccupied by the English-speaking public that, in everythingexcept political classification, they may almost be regarded asBritish possessions "; while they certainly derive from theBritish occupation" the prosperity, not to say the meansof subsistence, that support them for the remainder of thetwelvemonth. In these circumstances, to insist that the

British practitioner shall not prescribe for a compatriotunless furnished with a Swiss diploma is not only unfair buteminently impolitic, as the cantons, in their own interests,have begun to find out. " Point d’argent, point de Suisses,’says the French proverb, in allusion to the old compactbetween the Swiss Guards and their Absolutist employers.

1 THE LANCET, Jan. 21st, 1893.