The Sun.
London, England, 1868-08-05 00:00:00

THE BRITISH MEDICAL ASSOCIATION.

The thirty-sixth annual meeting of the British Medical
Association began at Oxford on Tuesday, under the
presidency of H. W. Acland, M.D., D.C.L., F.R.S.,
the Regius Professor of Physics in the University. Dr.
Stokes, of Dublin, is the retiring president. The
meeting is expected to be one of the most important
and influential which the association has yet held. It
will extend to Friday, the 7th inst. The following are
the presidents of the sections :—Sir William Jenner
(medicine), Professor Rolleston (physiology), Mr. James
Paget (surgery), Sir Charles Locock (midwifery), and Mr.
John Simon (State medicine). One of the most striking
features of this meeting, both in a scientific and social
aspect, will be the president's soirée in the University
Museum, a building singularly adapted to give brilliant
effect to such a reunion. Among other scientific attrac-
tions which this soiree will offer, Professor Beale, of King's
College, London, has undertaken to exhibit, with a lavish
profusion of miscroscopes, a large number of very choice
microscopical preparations, illustrating the tissues in
health and disease.

The PRESIDENT, in his inaugural address, after acknow-
ledging the honour which the association had conferred on
him, said lie proposed to take a general survey of the
position occupied by medical knowledge, and the objects
which ought to be held in view in discussing the formation of
the character and temper of the medical profession. Medicine
had too long consented to regard itself as an art, and so dis-
tinguished from science. It could never fulfil its mission until
it recognised and substantiated its claims to be one of the
sciences that precisely interpret the phenomena of nature.
In so far as medicine was purely scientific it was not in
harmony with the average mind of mankind, and in so
far as it was empirical it was at variance with pure science.
Having shewn how medicine adopts scientific methods,
Dr. Acland proceeded to consider the relations of medi-
cine to the wants of modern society. The relations of
medicine were modified by the multitude of its
agents. But if the philosophic base of medicine has been
changed during the century by its relation to science, it
has been as muclf modified by the exigencies of a fast-
growing popui.ation. It would not be true to say
that till modern times no great crowds of men have been
densely congregated into unhealthy masses. There
were great armies before the Christian era ; there
must have been great overcrowding in ancient
Rome. A careful and detailed sanitary code was
enforced on the Jewish people at the time of the exodus.
Rome paid no small attention to sanitary works. But
one of the peculiarities of modern life is the tendency to
increase in great towns. In England between 1841 and
1851 there was an increase in the great towns of over
100,000 inhabitants of 23 per cent., and in the follow-
ing decennial period, from 1851 to 1861, there was
in France an increase in towns of similar mag-
nitude of 50 per cent. The evils of modern civili-
sation had not yet been met by the clear-sighted and
systematic superintendency by which they can be sub-
dued ; but he hoped ere long to see the relations
which ought to subsist between this department of the
science of medicine and the community at large investi-
gated systematically by a royal commission. He antici-
pated that one result of such a commission would be
the elevation of the duties of an officer in State medicine
to that of a recognised profession. The Government
would have to define the duties to be discharged by
public health officers, and the General Council of
Medical Education would be able to direct the educa-

tion of those who aspire to the performance of the
duties so defined. The problems arising from the condi-
tion of great towns were become part of the literature of
the day. "For my own part," said the professor, " I know
nothing apparently so damaging to the reputation of the
study of classics, as a means of forming completeness of
character, as its active antipathy in former years to the
cultivation of science, and its passive indifference to the
promotion of art." The address was frequently ap•
lauded.

THE PUBLIC HEALTIL

4

Tho Registrar-General's weekly return of births and
deaths in London and in thirteen other large towns of the
United Kingdom states that in the week that ended on
Saturday, August 1, 4,416 births and 3,770 deaths were
registered in London and in thirteen other large towns of
the United Kingdom. The annual rate of mortality was
31 per 1,000 persons living. The annual rate of mortality
last week was 28 per 1,000 in London, 25 in Edinburgh, and
23 in Dublin ; 25 in Bristol, 39 in Birmingham, 36
in Liverpool, 36 in Manchester, 39 in Salford, 38
in Sheffield, 39 in Bradford, 39 in Leeds, 36 in Hull,
26 in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and 30 in Glasgow.
The rate in Vienna was 35 per 1,000 during the
week ending the 25th ult., when the mean tem-
perature was 5.1 deg. Fahrenheit higher than in the same
week in London, where the rate was 31. The mortality
from diarrhoea sheaved a decline last week in London,
but had further increased in several of the other large
towns, especially in Birmingham and Liverpool. The
annual death-rate from this disease during last week was
4 per 1,000 in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 5 in Bristol, 6 in
London, 9 in Bradford, 10 in Manchester and Hull, 11 in
Liverpool, 12 in Salford, 13 in Sheffield, 14 in Leeds, and so
high as 20 per 1,000 in Birmingham. There is little doubt
that under a well-organised system for treating the disease in
its earlier stages, this mortality would rapidly decrease, and
the risk of the more dangerous choleraic forms would be
reduced to a minimum. In London the births of 1,078
boys and 1,028 girls, in all 2,106 children, were registered
in the week. In the corresponding weeks of ten years,
1858.67, the average number, corrected for increase of
population, is 2,026. The deaths of 859 males and 806
females, in all 1,665 persons, were registered in London
during the week. It was the thirty-first week of the
year, and the average number of deaths for that week is,
with a correction for increase of population, 1,583. The
deaths in the present return exceed by 82 the estimated
amount, but are less by 220 than the number recorded in
the preceding week. The deaths from zymotic diseases
were 691, the corrected average number being 638. Five
deaths from smallpox, 4G from measles, 47 from scarla-
tina, 9 from diphtheria, 32 from whooping-cough, and 52
from fever were registered. Thirty-eight deaths from cho•
leraic diarrhoea or cholera were recorded ; 27 fatal cases
were those of children under 3 years of age ; 5 children who
died were aged from 2 to 10 years, and 6 fatal cases occurred
in adults. The deaths of 6 persons from sunstroke were
recorded ; and in many cases the fatal termination of
diseases was stated to have been accelerated by the great
heat. The deaths of 10 infants from syphilis, of 4 persona
from burns or scalds, of 13 persons from drowning, of
8 infants from suffocation, of 6 persons who committee
suicide, and of 4 persons who were killed by horses of
carriages in the streets, were registered. At the Roya'
Observatory, Greenwich, the mean height of the
barometer in the week was 29'801 in. The barometric
reading increased from 29'51 in. on Tuesday, 28th July, t(
30'16 in. on Saturday, Ist August. The mean tempo
rature of the air in the week was 67'6 deg., which is 5.:
deg. above the average of the same week in 50 year,
(as determined by Mr. Glaisher). The highest day tempo
rature was 901 deg. on Tuesday, 28th July. The lowest
night temperature was 49'4 deg., on Saturday, Ist August
The entire range of temperature in the week was, there
fore, 407 deg. The highest reading of the thermomete•
in the sun was 167'0 deg. on the 28th July.

Brighton intends to invite the British Associa
tion to hold their next annual congress there.
It is claimed as a fact worthy of note that there
have been fewer persons apprehended during the Good
wood Races this year than for several years past, as th
following statistics will shew :—ln 1865, 12 ; in 1866, 10
in 1867, 21: in 1868, 8.

The announcement in a contemporary that severa
gentlemen who have distinguished themselves as supporter
of the Government would be advanced to the dignity o
the peerage after the prorogation, is very premature
Nothing of the kind will be clone at present, and autum'
will be far advanced before any such question is taken int
consideration by the Primo Minister and the Crown.-
Post.

THE AMERICAN MINISTER.—The Hon. Reverd•
Johnson, the new United States Minister at the Court c
St. James's, is expected to arrive at Southampton wib
his suite, from Baltimore, on the 15th inst., in the Norb
German Lloyd steamship. Baltimore. Mrs. Lincoln, th
widow of the late President of the United States, and he
son, aro itlE) expected 1“ the stung otemucr.