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money to their own advantage and only looking upon thepatients as secondary considerations. If he can prove thetruth of this allegation against any institution he will bedoing a beneficial act to the public and medical professionalike ; if he cannot do this he will show less ignorance ofthe subject by keeping silence.

THE DIRECT REPRESENTATION OF THE PRO-FESSION AND THE LANCASHIRE AND

CHESHIRE BRANCH OF THE BRITISH

MEDICAL ASSOCIATION.

THE Lancashire and Cheshire Branch of the BritishMedical Association, as will be seen in our correspondencecolumns, nominated at their meeting on Wednesday at

Southport the following gentlemen: Dr. Glover, Dr. SamWoodcock, J.P., of Manchester, President-elect of the

Lancashire and Cheshire Branch of the British Medical

Association, member of the Council and of the Parlia-

mentary Bills Committee of the British Medical Associa-

tion, and President (re-elected) of the Manchester Medico-Ethical Association; and Dr. Lovell Drage, of Hatfieldand St. Albans. Dr. Drage was a distinguished studentat Oxford and house surgeon and midwifery assistant at St.Bartholomew’s Hospital, and is the writer of several letterson medical politics. -

" UNEVENTFUL MIDWIFERY."

IT is always a pleasant duty to us as medical journalists Ito have to review the work of a general practitioner, hard in its character and extending over a good series of years,especially when the results are satisfactory and the prac-titioner himself survives in comparative youth and strength.Last week we published the report of the proceedings ofthe Islington Medical Society, which included an accountof his midwifery work by Mr. Jago, under the happyheading "Uneventful Midwifery." We wonder what thosewho consider medical practice an easy matter would think ofthe facts so succinctly told by Mr. Jago and of the attend-ance on over 4700 cases in twenty-three years, not as

a sole occupation, but as one of the multifarious dutiesof a general practice in a populous and not over rich

neighbourhood. The number gives an average of about 204cases a year, and in most of the years doubtless a much

larger number. The record and the results are such as anypractitioner may be congratulated on. Take the most

important point of all-that of mortality. There is nothingmore pathetic than the death of women owing to the

function of childbirth, and no medical man is worthyof his profession who does not take every pains andmake every sacrifice to avert such a result of parturi-tion. Mr. Jago has obviously taken such pains. Wehave all heard, indeed, of obstetric practitioners who neverhad any mortality. They never lost a case. But we have

rarely known such. We prefer such possible records asMr. Jago’s-excluding two cases of advanced phthisis-amortality of 7 in 4700 cases, or 1 death in about 671 : twocases of death from hæmorrhage, 1 from embolism, 1 fromprivation, and 3 from septic infection. There is possibly anelement of luck in obstetric as in other practice. But it isthe business of the accoucheur to control the process oflabour and to counteract the element of ill-luck, and this hemust chiefly do by early detection of complications and un-toward accidents and their early correction, and bythe exclusion of all uncleanliness and infection. Theelement of luck or chance is illustrated by one veryremarkable fact in the series of cases now under

notice. The complication of shoulder presentation onlyoccurred once to Mr. Jago, and in that case he was sent

.or by a midwife, who was trying to deliver by pullingupon the arm. It is surely very rare for a practitioner ofsuch large experience to have seen so little of cross pre-3entations. An almost equally strong illustration of theelement of luck in midwifery is to be found in the fact thatMr. Jago in his 4700 cases only remembered one case ofprolapsed funis. Churchill collected 98,512 cases of labourin which this accident occurred 401 times, or once in 245’5 5cases. Mr. Bland, quoted by Dr. Lusk, met with it once in1897 cases. Allowing for the fact that Mr. Jago has notkept elaborate statistics, which would be almost impossiblein such circumstances, and that he may have encounteredtwo or three more of these abnormalities than he can

remember, it is still remarkable that he has encounteredthem so seldom as he has done. We may say the same ofhis cases of placenta prævia and of the need to perforate,which occurred_only once.

DR. KLEIN, F.R.S. will continue on Wednesdays, Julylst and 8th, at 4 P.M., at King’s College, Strand, at

the instance of the British Institute of Public Health, theHarben Lectures, having as their subject "RecentResearches in the Identification of the Typhoid Bacillusand the Cholera Vibrio." All who may be interested areinvited to attend. The first lecture on the subject wasgiven on Wednesday last, but notice of its impending deliverywas not sent to us.

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THE annual dinner of the Cambridge Medical Graduates’Club will be held at Limmer’s Hotel, Conduit-street, W., onJuly 2nd, the first day of the Inter-University cricket match,at 8 P.M. Dr. W. H. Dickinson, the senior Vice-President,will be in the chair. The annual general meeting for electionof officers and other business will be held at 7.30 P.M. Eachmember may bring two guests; tickets 10s. 6d., exclusive ofwine.

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THE DUCHESS OF CONNAUGHT, who was accompanied bythe Duke of Connaught, opened at Queen’s Hall, Langham-place, on Tuesday afternoon, a rose fete and bazaar inaid of the North-Eastern Hospital for Children, Hackney-road, Shoreditch.

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THE Colonial Office has learned by telegram from theGovernor of Hong-Kong that there were twenty-one freshcases of bubonic plague in the week ending June 23rd, andtwenty deaths from the plague during the same period.

THE PRINCESS OF WALES, accompanied by the PrincessesVictoria and Maud, paid a visit to St. Mary’s Hospital onTuesday last. They were conducted through the wards bySir William Broadbent.

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DR. D. J. GALLOWA has been granted the royal licenceto wear the insignia of the Order of the Crown of Johoreof the Second Class conferred upon him by the Sultan ofJohore.

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THE PRINCE OF WALES has signalled his Derby victory byforwarding a donation of fifty guineas to the honorarysecretary of the Epsom and Ewell Cottage Hospital.

THE DUCHESS OF YORK will open a " Princess May’sWard for Children " at the Royal Hospital, Richmond, onWednesday, July 8th. -

WE congratulate Dr. Longstaff, L.C.C., upon being aliveand sympathise with him on the death of his relative.