1526

transportation gratis of the expedition and apparatus. Colonel he carried out while a resident there. He confirmed the
W. C. Gorgas, chief sanitary officer of the Panama opinion held by the late Professor Stokvis, that " if a white
Canal zone, with various members of his staff, placed man be a wise man " he can acclimatise himself to tropical
all the material in his hospitals at the disposal of conditions perfectly well. There is nothing in the constitution
the expedition, and extended every possible courtesy. of the white man which prevents him from maintaining good
The personnel of the expedition consisted of two members health in the tropics ; there is, therefore, no objection which
of the school, Dr. Charles Cassedy Bass, assistant professor can be raised to the Queensland experiment from a health
of tropical medicine and hygiene, and Dr. Foster Mathew point of view. But,adds Dr. Kohlbrugge, "we have
Johns, assistant in the laboratories of tropical medicine and been taught another lesson by practical experience ; no
hygiene. The object of the investigation was the cultiva- white race has been able to survive in the tropics unless race
tion of the malarial parasites in vitro which had already mixture takes place." Race mixture and race problems are
been accomplished by Professor Bass, but many details of results which the Australian Government particularly wish to
which remained to be elucidated and confirmed. "In this avoid. "Fair Europeans," adds Dr. Kohlbrugge, "have
the party obtained complete success," says the report. not been able to hold their own in the tropics, although
’’ It was found that the malarial plasmodia can be grown fertility does not decrease, at least, not in the first
in human serum, in Locke’s fluid (from which calcium generation, and their first children show good promise.
chloride is omitted), and in human ascitic fluid. In the Degeneration only sets in later." It will be thus seen
majority of cases dextrose must be added to the medium that Dr. Kohlbrugge takes a pessimistic view of the
to secure satisfactory growth. The most favourable tempera- future of the Anglo-Saxon as a tropical colonist. He admits,
ture for the cultivation of plasmodia is about 40° C. Positive however, that there is an urgent need for the further
cultures were obtained from 29 cases of sestivo-autumnal collection of facts bearing on this problem, such as Dr. Arthur
malaria, 6 cases of tertian, and 1 case of quartan. Cultures is now in need of, and adds, "Queensland seems a most
were carried on for four generations from the parent culture interesting field for experiment because no race mixture is to
before the expedition left Central America, and can probably be feared,:and also because the colonists are obliged to do
"
be maintained indefinitelv." In addition to these researches their own work. The results will only be conclusive after
the school has also carried out experimental work on another hundred years or so." It will be noted that Dr.
pellagra, leprosy, beri-beri, blackwater fever, filariasis, and Kohlbrugge does not expect the experiment in Queensland to
other tropical diseases. The school is under the direction end in disaster for the first or even for the second generation
of Dr. Creighton Wellman, formerly of West Africa and the of settlers ; it is only the ultimate success of the experiment
London School of Tropical Medicine, who must be con- which he regards as open to doubt.
gratulated on the work already undertaken by his new
organisation, as the school is only now entering the second
THE TREATMENT OF SMALL-POX BY APPLICA-
year of its existence. The observations upon malarial
parasites are interesting inasmuch as for many years all TION OF TINCTURE OF IODINE.
attempts to cultivate the plasmodia on artificial media i IN the Indian Medical Gazette for September Dr. A. G,
outside the human body had proved unsuccessful. The
work of Dr. Bass and Dr. Johns should in our opinion give
Newell, health officer of Lahore, has recorded excellent
results from the application of tincture of iodine to the
an important impetus to the experimental study of some lesions of small-pox. As iodine has proved so useful as an
at least of the still unsolved problems connected with
antiseptic it occurred to him to use it to disinfect the skin
malarial fevers. in small-pox, and so diminish the aerial dissemination of
infectious epithelial debris. It seemed that the earlier this
THE ANGLO-SAXON AS A TROPICAL COLONIST. was done the better. Accordingly he painted the more
exposed parts, such as the forehead, chin, neck, and backs
Ix ourcorrespondence columns Dr. Richard Arthur, of of the hands. He found that this treatment accomplished
Sydney, asks for help in solving a problem which bears very
much more than the object in view. When used early in
directly on the future expansion of the Anglo-Saxon stock.
confluent cases it materially affected the development
It is now apparent that we shall conquer the endemic diseases
of the tropics and lay the latter freely open to European
of the pocks and prevented pitting, which is so horrible
a result in these cases. The earlier it was applied
races, but the important question has yet to be answered. the better. The application was made two or three
Can the white races, especially the Anglo-Saxons, success-
times a day for a few days, and then the drug
fully colonise the tropics ? It appears that there is was discarded. The stained scabs and epithelium came
every likelihood of the experiment being tried in the The method was successful both in Indians and
away.
tropical part of Queensland-an experiment which Dr. Europeans. Other advantages derived from it were as
Arthur anticipates may end in a disastrous failure. The
follows : 1. Modification of the disease. 2. Dh. uution of
problem is a very old as well as a very important one. the pain and fever. 3. Disinfection of the parts to which
Dr. James Prichard, the first great English anthropologist,
it was applied and consequent lessening of the chances of
laid it down as an axiom that white races were constitu-
infection from epithelial debris. 4. Lessening of the spread
tionally unfit to become permanent settlers in tropical of the disease among natives who refuse to go to hospital.
countries, and that is the opinion still held by modern If the exposed parts are disinfected arrangements can be
anthropologists. By far the best statement of our present made to disinfect the clothing covering other parts.
attitude towards this question appeared in the Eitgenq*,cs
5. Diminution of the mortality in confluent cases, for
Bel’ien’ for April, 1911, from the pen of Dr. J. H. F.
when the pocks are abated the toxaemia is diminished.
Kohlbrugge, now a resident of Utrecht, but for many years Dr. Newell proposes to try how far the mortality can be
a physician in Java. He is known throughout Europe on
further diminished by a more extensive application of iodine.
account of the excellent observations he made on the health
of Europeans living in the tropical climate of Java and the
He intends to apply it alternately to different parts of the
body so as to treat the whole eruption. We may point
valuable anthropological and anatomical investigation which
out that similar results from the use of carbolic have been
recorded in our columns. Dr. J. T. Neech applied the pure
1 James Cowles Prichard: Researches into the Physical History of
Man. 1813. acid with a small camel-hair brush to the spots of a certain
 1527
.area each day, first to the face and head.l He found proper use of the X rays after operation, and perhaps before
that the treatment arrested the disease in the papular as well, increases the patient’s chance of escaping recur-
vesicular, or pustular stage and prevented pitting. In an rence. Incidentally, pain when present is relieved in nearly
outbreak of small-pox in Bury this treatment was carried out all cases, small superficial nodules disappear, ulceration is
by Dr. A. E. Brindley and Dr. F. W. Bonis.They confirmed healed over, and the retrogression of enlarged gdlands is
Dr. Neech’s claims and found that the vesicles rapidly familiar to every radiologist. Unfortunately neither this
shrivelled up and scabbed. They attached importance to method nor radium gives us any control over metastasis. It
the early removal of the scabs by an oil poultice or otherwise, is those rays that are absorbed by the superficial layers of
as this tends to prevent subsequent suppuration. Carboluria the tissues that are the most efficient in a therapeutic sense
was never observed. A striking result was the mildness of -their value decreasing very rapidly at a short distance
the symptoms coinciding with maturation of the pustules. from the surface. This, however, only emphasises the
In several cases the temperature was practically normal necessity for early applications, and the futility, or worse,
throughout. The treatment lessened the pitting but was not of delaying the X ray treatment until definite signs
a certain preventive. To obtain the best results it was of recurrence have developed. Much remains to be done
necessary to apply the acid carefully to the whole eruptions along these lines ; it is possible that good results may
a part at a time. On the first day the face and neck were come from the use of secondary radiations. Every substance
treated, on the following day the hands and arms, then the subjected to the influence of the X rays-especially metals
lower limbs, and finally the trunk. of high specific gravity-gives off a secondary radiation that
is constant for any given substance, but differs with each
to the specific gravity. The trouble so far is
THE OUTLOOK IN RADIOLOGY AND ELECTRO- proportionately
that the output of these secondary radiations is so small, but
THERAPEUTICS. it is not too much to hope that this drawback may be re-
IN our issue of August 24th, p. 542, we referred to the moved. At present the rays given off from the X ray tube
advances that had been made in recent years regarding the are of a complex character, and though we can arrange for a
medical applications of radiology, and now our attention has predominance of’’ hard "or " soft"rays up to a certain point,
been drawn to a presidential address given by Dr. Frank the fact remains that the beam is essentially polychromatic.
Fowler before the Bournemouth Medical Society, entitled We want a series of monochromatic beams any of which may
"A Review of Electrotherapy and Radiology." In be used at will. To put the matter in another way, we are
reading this address we have been impressed with the now, as it were, working with a crude drug containing many
long list of physical agents that have been brought alkaloids, which differ in their properties and effects; we
into the field of practical therapeutics, and still more with are looking for a method of separating out these different
the numerous diseases that are now treated by these agents alkaloids in sufficient quantities for practical use. This
with a degree of success that is highly creditable. Nor subject seems to us to be worthy of the fullest investigation,
is the field of usefulness confined to treatment only-the and if the problem is satisfactorily solved it seems likely
value of electro-diagnosis in certain disorders of the nervous that the X ray treatment of cancer will become increasingly
system would be difficult to over-estimate, since it affords important, and certainly more scientific.
evidence of the most positive kind. Of an equal im-
portance, but of more general application, is the evidence
afforded by means of the X rays ; though the correct inter- A POST-GRADUATE MEDICAL COURSE IN CHILD
pretation of the appearances on the screen or plate is at HYGIENE.
times very difficult, this gives no real trouble to the skilled THE future of the race depends upon the fitness of its
worker. It is rather startling to consider for a moment children. The fitness of its children depends in the last
where we would be if suddenly deprived of the assistance resort upon the capacity of the general practitioner to advise
of X rays, and yet we may remember that it is just 17 years soundly and sanely those who have the care and bringing up
since the existence of such radiations was demonstrated. of children. Therefore it may truly be said that the future
Seldom has the result of physical experiment been so quickly of our race depends upon the general medical practitioner.
and extensively applied to the benefit of humanity. The value It is consequently one of his most pressing obligations to
of the X rays in therapeutics, though of a less positive keep himself abreast of the increase of knowledge in this
character than in diagnosis, is a subject upon which many particular, an obligation of greater economic importance even
volumes have been written, and it is safe to say there will be than that of rendering aid to the sick. To aid him in this task
many more to follow. Numerous skin diseases which resisted there was formed last July by the Federation of the National
ordinary Iremedies give way to X ray treatment. Familiar Conferences on Infantile Mortality, the National League for
instances are those of acne vulgaris, and psoriasis. Numerous Physical Education and Improvement, and the Women’s
cases of rodent ulcer have been treated with complete success ; National Health Association of Ireland, a National Association
the time required for the cure of ringworm is a mere fraction for the Prevention of Infant Mortality and for the Welfare of
of what it was before the X ray method was perfected, and Infancy. This association has lost no time in getting to
this list might be very greatly extended. One point in Dr. work, already it announces a post-graduate course on
for
Fowler’s address, which he treated at rather greater length the feeding and care of infants, with special attention to
than the others, presents some encouraging features, and the milk problem. The advisory committee of the course
that is the use of the X rays in the treatment of consists of Sir Thomas Barlow, Sir Lauder Brunton, Dr.
cancer. While it is not claimed that operable cases E. Cautley, Dr. A. E. Garrod, Sir James Goodhart, Dr.
should be given X ray treatment, nor that it is pos- W. Hale White, Dr. E. W. Hope, Professor H. R. Kenwood,
sible to cure cases that have been declared inoper. Dr. James Kerr, Professor C. J. Martin, Sir Shirley Murphy,
able, there seems to be enough evidence now available to Dr. A. Newsholme, Sir William Osler, Professor G. F. Still,
encourage an intelligent and genuine cooperation between and Sir John Tweedy. The course, the fee for which to
the surgeon and the radiologist. Surgery can never be sure medical men is the modest snm of one guinea only, will take
of removing the last trace of a cancerous growth, while the place in London from Jan. 6th to 16th inclusive, the
various classes being held at the St. Marylebone General
1 THE LANCET, Feb. 21st, 1903, p. 518,
2 THE LANCET, Oct. 24th, 1903, p. 1153. Dispensary, the St. Pancras School for Mothers, The Lit,,r