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Annotations.

THE QUEEN’S EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY.

"Ne quid nimis."

THE Queen is a wonderful old lady. The homely phrasewill not, we trust, jar upon the susceptibilities of our readerswhen applied to the powerful and august leader to whomso many millions owe faithful allegiance. We use it

designedly as expressing the tender feeling towards HerMajesty as the Mother of her People which we know to beuniversal in her realms and which peeps out in every formal or

gorgeous celebration which her prolonged reign among usgives occasion for. ’’ A wonderful old lady " is the affection-ate expression of admiration and esteem which in the familycircle is universally given to the head of that familywhose age does not preclude her from rightly filling theposition of head. With admiration her juniors note that yearsdo not blunt the susceptibilities of the patriarch, that

the heaped-up trials and successes, joys and griefs of a longlife have not deadened her sympathies to the new things,the new developments, the new ideas, which were unheardof in her own youth but which now constitute so much ofthe lives of her grandchildren and younger descendants.The " wonderful old lady" brings to face the troubles of thehour the accumulated experiences of a lifetime and beforeher wisdom the troubles dispel themselves. What she approvesof all her family will find worth their approbation, whatshe turns from will certainly be found to have its trivial or

unworthy side. It is in this way that her subjects are

proudest to regard Her Majesty. Her reign has been un-surpassed in its developments. With all of these she has

managed to remain in close touch, appreciating that

which is good in them and exercising a very judiciousrestraint upon that which is not. And now at 80 yearsof age, in complete possession of all her faculties, she

spends the evening of her days in caring for her people,sharing their joys, dividing their sorrows, and presenting inall events a splendid example of dignity, good sense, andloving-kindness. Our Queen is a great queen and also awonderful old lady."

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THE APPOINTMENT OF COUNTY MEDICALOFFICERS OF HEALTH.

WE have on previous occasions written on the advantagesof the appointment of a county medical officer of health asdistinguished from a district medical officer. Many countycouncils, however, seem to regard a county medical officeras something to be avoided. In THE LANCET of Jan. 28th werecounted how the Wiltshire County Council had decided toappoint a county medical officer while the neighbouringcounty of Somerset had refused to do so. We are

sorry to have to chronicle the same piece of shortsighted-ness on the part of another county-namely, Hampshire.A quarterly meeting of the Hampshire County Council washeld in Winchester Castle on May 15th when the report ofthe General Purposes Committee was brought up. The

report stated: 11 your committee are of opinion that it isinadvisable to appoint a medical officer for the county, butthey consider that more attention might well be devotedto the consideration of the annual reports of the medicalofficers of health of the several urban and rural dis-tricts and they propose to appoint a special sub-com-mittee for that purpose ...... they find that a competentmedical officer for the county could not be secured for a lesssalary than 600 a year, exclusive of expenses." Colonel

Grimston, the chairman of the committee, related a harrow-ing story about a friend of his own, a property owner in

the north, who told him that the county had appointed amedical officer of health who had become a perfectnuisance. He (the medical officer) was an exceedingly niceman personally but his name stank in the nostrils of the

county gentlemen because he was always interfering-he:was obliged to make work and whenever he appeared people-were afraid he was going to take action. The Hants CountyCouncil were so struck by this tale that they accepted theircommittee’s report without discussion. We set forth thereasons why a medical officer of health for the county is adesirable official in THE LANCET of Nov. 26th, 1898, andJan. 28th, 1899, and we need not recapitulate them hereexcept to say again that in sanitary matters, as in everythingelse, there must be a central head.

THE MEDICAL FACTOR IN IMPERIALEXPANSION.

THE Protectorate of British Central Africa, from its

inception to its completion, is the work of two men, bothof them medical missionaries, Dr. David Livingstone andDr. James Stewart. It is a magnificent contribution to the-great work of which the closing century has seen the-

beginning and of which the coming century will see the-

development-the reclamation of the Dark Continent to.

its place in the evolution of humanity. Religion andmedicine, not in antagonism, but going hand in hand,viribus 1tnitis, must be credited with this achievement, andit is to the honour of both professions that they freelyacknowledge the services which each owes to the other inthe common result. In THE LANCET,l in commenting onthe great meeting held in Glasgow for the promotion of

medical missions, we dwelt on this harmonious cooperationof religion and medicine and we pointed out how theBritish Empire, in its policy of expansion, enjoys.through this cooperation an advantage shared in equalmeasure by no other rival. True, Cardinal Lavigerie,in his splendid work for the civilising of the Sahara,did not neglect the healing art as an instrumenttowards that end. But his organisation of the Christian

Brothers, in its preponderance of the proselytising element,and in its preference of the military to the medical arm,was far inferior to its British counterpart, as indeedis already proved by results. The more the civilisingpower keeps the display of force in the backgroundand makes moral suasion its distinctive method, the moreits success in winning over the aborigines and in weldingthem into the higher social organisms which it seeks toconsolidate. To impress such peoples with the superiorityof the new to the traditional order the effort of the

missionary is accelerated incalculably by his knowledgeof Nature and her forces; by his utilisation of theseto meet existing wants ; above all, by his powerto exorcise epidemic disease and to avert from its

hereditary victims" the shaft that flies in darkness

Medicine, which is simply nature-study in its highest, mostcomplex, and most refined form, represents that moral

agency at its acme and impresses the savage mind withcorresponding power and effect. This truth was well known

to Dr. Livingstone, as may be read even between the linesof his most purely missionary publications, and it was

thoroughly grasped by Dr. Stewart, "his assistant and suc-cessor." Trained for the Church, after previous qualificationin the arts curriculum of Edinburgh University, Stewart atthis stage was attracted by Dr. Livingstone’s "MissionaryTravels," and as a step towards following in his foot-

steps he added nature-study in its medical departmentto his "armamentarium." Having graduated M.D. hethrew himself into missionary enterprise, the peoples ofEast Central Africa being his first objective. The record of

1 THE LANCET, March 18th, 1899, pp. 785.