569DISLOCATION OF THE SEMILUNAR BONE.

two by Purvis and one by myself. The condition ofthe patients, however, was too advanced for anydefinite conclusion. There is one point which needsconsideration. The response to produce an effectwas found to vary in the different animals. The

sheep was more responsive than the rat, rabbit,and goat. The question arises whether the horsemight be more suitable.

I am, Sir, yours faithfully,J. A. SHAW-MACKENZIE, M.D. Lond.

London, March 5th, 1925.

DISLOCATION OF THE SEMILUNAR BONETo the Editor of THE LANCET.

SIR,—Mr. C. Noon’s article on this subject in THELANCET of Feb. 28th stimulates me to record asimilar case which came under my care in theNorthampton General Hospital last July. The patientwas a man aged 28. He stated that while startinga car the handle became locked with the shaft andthrew him over. He was referred to me by thehouse surgeon a few days after the accident. Hewas suffering from very severe pain in wrist andhand and was unable to move the fingers. Therewas general swelling of the wrist. An X ray platewhich had been taken from the dorsal aspect showednothing beyond a slight irregularity of the proximalrow of carpal bones. A lateral view of the joint wasobtained. and this showed forward dislocation of thesemilunar bone with rotation of the inferior articularsurface to the palmar aspect. Manipulation underanaesthesia failing to reduce the dislocation, an open operation was performed one week after the accident.An incision was made just to the radial side of the Itendon of the flexor carpi radialis, avoiding themedian nerve, and the dislocation reduced withoutmuch difficulty. The wrist was put up on a splint ina slightly flexed position to prevent redislocation.He was encouraged to move his fingers from thefirst and no splint was used after a fortnight. Anexcellent functional result was obtained, but threemonths after the accident flexion and extensionmovements- at the wrist-joint were still somewhatlimited.-I am, Sir, yours faithfully,

Northampton, March 3rd,-1925.

BISMUTH THERAPY IN SYPHILIS.

To the Editor of THE LANCET.

SIR,—In the leading article upon this subject inTHE -LANCET of March 7th with reference to myreview in the first number of The British Journal ofVenereal Diseases you mention the omission fromthe bibliography of Levaditi and Nicolau’s paperin the Annales de l’ I nstitut Pasteur. The explanationis, that when the bibliography was compiled, it hadto be kept within small compass on account of con-siderations of space. As it turned out, however, itmight have been extended. The reference to Levaditi’sHarben Lecture (Journal of State Medicine, 1924, xxxii.,62) was considered sufficient, and that it would bemore easily accessible. Iri that lecture Levaditiexplains the details of the bismoxyl experiments,and also gives a reference to his joint paper withNicolau (Compt. rend. Acad. des Sc., 1923, clxxvi.,1189). On account of the immense literature onbismuth therapy, a rather rigorous selection had tobe made, otherwise the bibliography would have beenof greater length than the review. I do not think,however, that anything essential was omitted.

In the next issue of the B.J.V.D. there will befound a brief résumé of the main experimental andclinical reasons which compel me to take a differentview from Lomholt as to the therapeutic value ofmercury. I am, Sir, yours faithfully,Manchester, March 7th, 1925. E. T. BURKE.

THE FULL RESOUNDING LINE.*To the Editor of THE LANCET.

SIR,—The day before I read, with the most sincereregret, of Sir Clifford Allbutt’s death, I had occasionto seek out his Cavendish lecture from my archives.The passage I was in search of was in the middle ofthe pimpblet, but my eye fell upon the openingparagraphs, and I devoured them as if entranced bythe magic of the wording. It is no wonder, I saidto myself, that he was accounted a master of gracefuland scholarly exposition. Lest your readers shouldhave forgotten, as I had forgotten, the grace and charmwith which this courtly old gentleman (and he wassuch a gentleman) was capable of investing theseverest of subjects, I append the passage-" forDelight," as Bacon says of Studies, " for Ornamentand for Ability."

" In a little tract of the brain, one so small that an infantmight grasp it, lies the engine of all that makes life worthliving ; and but a few inches below it, where brain and spineunite, is a still smaller tract, where lies the knot of life itself.The upper tract has ts times of energy and of repose, by sleepits ravelled sleave is knitted up ; but the knot of life itselfknows no pause, no quiescence ; let its vigilance be at faultfor a few seconds, and the busy frame it governs will dropinto silence. Save as a lesson in physiology, these are strangeparts to us ; yet there is another unsleeping minister of life,our familiar, of whose pulses Harvey was rapt into sayingthat they are of the spirit of the blood acting superiorly tothe powers of the elements.... and that the soul in thisspirit and blood is identical with the essence of the stars.rWhen the pulses of this instrument beat in harmony wefeel within us that all is well ; when they are jangled andout of tune we are dismayed. Often when in the still nightI hear, as I lie, the calm and continual rhythm of my familiarspirit ever winnowing boon from bane, I am lost in wonder

at the long procession of these notes of human time, at thisperpetual beat of the manifold tides of life. As I listen toits notes they seem to fall into the burden :-

’So schaff’ich am sausenden Webstuhl der Zeit,. Und wirke der Gottheit lebendiges Kleid.’

Sixty times a minute, at least; 3600 times an hour, 86,400times a day, for us heedful and heedless, does this shuttleof life throb to and fro ; for us in tireless periods thispendulum of man’s gravitation tells the seconds which cannever return."

I am, Sir, yours faithfully,, I Harley House, N.W., Feb. 28th, LEONARD WILLIAMS.

* Pope’s reference to Dryden in his Imitations of Horace :—

" The full resounding line,The long majestic march, and energy divine."

HEXYL RESORCINOL.To the Editor of THE LANCET.

SIR,—In your issue of Feb. 28th you refer to thenew synthetic compound hexyl resorcinol which,when administered by the mouth, renders the urinehighly bactericidal, and you refer also to the desira-bility of obtaining clinical evidence as to the effective-ness of the use of this new drug in the treatment ofinfections of the genito-urinary tract.The references made to this discovery in your journal

and in other medical journals have brought to us somany request for supplies of this new drug that wehave deemed it desirable at once to make somehexyl resorcinol in our laboratories, and this we havenow done. While we feel it premature to offer this-medicament for sale without further evidence as toits clinical value, we write to say that we shall be

I pleased to supply it in limited quantity to any medical

men who are interested in trying this new remedy.Wt-, 9,rt-- qip. vours faithfully.

THE BRITISH DRUG HOUSES, LTD.16-30, Graham-street, City-road, London, N. 1,

March 4th, 1925.

RED CROSS LIBRARY GIFTS.—The Library Com-mittee of the British Red Cross Society report that during

the year ending on Sept. 30th last, 1443 hospitals and.

kindred institutions were supplied with libraries. SirArthur Lawley’s wireless appeal brought in over 48,000books and magazines, and 379,000 were distributed duringthe year.

’ .

570 OBITUARY.

Obituary.JOSEPH ARDERNE ORMEROD, M.D. OXF.,

F.R.C.P. LoND.,CONSULTING PHYSICIAN, ST. BARTHOLOMEW’S HOSPITAL AND

NATIONAL HOSPITAL FOR PARALYSIS AND EPILEPSY ; ;REGISTRAR, ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS

OF LONDON.

DEATH has removed from our ranks a distinguishedphysician and scholar in the person of Dr. J. A.Ormerod, the Registrar of the Royal College ofPhysicians of London.

Dr. Ormerod, who was born in 1848, was the eldestsurviving son of the Venerable T. J. Ormerod, Arch-deacon of Suffolk, and brother of the late Miss EleanorOrmerod, the well-known agricultural entomologist.He was educated at Rugby under Dr. Temple, andentered Oxford as a classical scholar at CorpusChristi College, where he won many classical distinc-tions, including the Chancellor’s Prize for Latin verse.Being elected a Fellow of Jesus College, he decidedto take up natural science and obtained a first classin the Natural Science Tripos in 1871. He thenentered the medical school of St. Bartholomew’sHospital, where he qualified, taking also the M.B. Oxf.in 1875. He was appointed medical registrar to thehospital, took the M.R.C.P. in 1877, and was electedassistant physician in 1893, his tenure of the postof medical registrar being marked by the issue underhis authorship of the medical statistics in connexionwith St. Bartholomew’s Hospital for the five years1887-92. The period was one in which neurologicalresearches in connexion with clinical medicine wereproving particularly fruitful, and the famous workof Hughlings Jackson, David Ferrier, and VictorHorsley was revolutionising both accepted views andactual practice. Ormerod decided to specialise in thestudy of diseases of the nervous system and waselected physician to the National Hospital forParalysis and Epilepsy. At this period the staff ofthe hospital comprised all those just mentioned,while Bastian and Buzzard were also among theconsultants.Both at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital and at the

National Hospital he displayed the same qualities ofquiet acumen, correlating symptoms of all hiscases with the other factors, and never fearing to givereasons for the opinions at which he arrived. Hisaccuracy of diagnosis was very high, and those whohave attended his demonstrations at the NationalHospital will remember many occasions on which hismethods of approaching a case, his judgment of thefacts, and his prognostications of the probabilitiesproved a revelation to them, teaching them neverforgotten lessons. An epitome of this side of Ormerod’swork will be found in his Guide to the Diseases of theNervous System, published now over 30 years ago.Elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physiciansin 1885, he was marked out by his learning andqualities for appointment to examinerships andofficial lectureships. He examined for the Universityof Oxford and for the Royal College of Physicians ofLondon, delivered the Harveian Oration and LumleianLectures at the Royal College of Physicians of London,and was also a President of the Neurological Sectionof the Royal Society of Medicine. In the HarveianOration he followed the usual custom of paying tributeto Harvey and then introducing to the notice of theaudience a subject of general medical interest. lietook up the vast subject of heredity in relation todisease. There has been much detailed work donealong these lines during the 17 years which haveelapsed since Ormerod delivered his message, butmany of the questions which he then asked remain tobe settled, while no better introduction to the workin this direction of Galton. Karl Pearson, Mendel, andBat-eson can be found. Similarly a scholar’s treat-ment of the great and difficult subject of hysteriamarked Ormerod’s Lumleian Lectures. In those

lectures he concentrated attention on the develop-ments associated with the work of Janet and Freud,and while the researches of the former appealed morestrongly to him, he did due justice to the latter’sprofound investigations into the pjobkms involved.His critical spirit led him to outline, however, variousobjections to which Freud’s theories were and a,re

open, and beneath the polish of the essays, imposedupon him by his scholarship, it is not difficultto detect impatience with certain Freudianexuberances.

L In 1909 his term of active office at St. Bartholomew’s: Hospital closed with his election as Registrar of the

Royal College of Physicians of London, on theresignation of the late Dr. Edward Liveing. Duringthe 15 years that have elapsed many changes and

. developments occurred in medical education and? in every department of the work of the College, and. with them came continually increasing demands on

the Registrar. Ormerod never stinted himself in; his devotion to his duties; his industry was unweary-. ing and the claims of hospital and private practice. were allowed to give way to the calls of his duties

as Registrar, when he was appointed consultingphysician to both the great hospitals where his

L clinical work had been done.

One of his colleagues at the College writes:. " Ormerod had a full and intimate knowledge of allmatters relating to the medical curriculum, and to

College laws and traditions, and there was no one of: the Presidents who reigned in turn during Ormerod’s

tenure of office, who was not glad to avail himself of; his good judgment and advice. He was for many years,and up to the time of his death, a member of the Com-

. mittee of Management of the Conjoint ExaminationBoard, and at one time its chairman. And althoughhe was of a non-assertive and retiring disposition,he never failed to form a well-thought-out and decidedopinion on any College matter that came before him,

and was tenacious in holding to his judgment; when. he felt it his duty to do so lie urged his views and, opinion in the most conciliatory manner. When a

.

decision was come to he set out at once to carrv it

3 into practice with the same ready loyalty whetheror no it was in conformity with his own wishes. His

: amiable disposition and his kindly nature madefriends of all who knew him and endeared him to; those colleagues who were most’ closely connected: with him in carrying on the business of the College.The time and labour he gave to College work is known

, only to them-he spared no pains and no efforts.During part of the year 1923 his health prevented

: him from giving his usual daily attendance at the, College, but he managed to get through such partof his routine as was possible at his home and came, back to regular work in November last, since whichtime lie carried out his full duties with his usual energyand was at work till four days before his death.The influence of Dr. Ormerod’s work was much morethan was apparent, and his loss will be long felt andwill be dinicult to replace."For so learned a man and so competent a writer

Ormerod was not a profuse author, but he contributedarticles on epidemic cerebro-spinal meningitis, tabesdorsalis, and hysteria to Allbutt and Rolleston’s" Systexn of Medicine," and a comparatively smallnumber of clinical articles to THE LANCET andother medical journals. In all that he wrote heappeared as one of the leading neurologists of thecountry. It is significant that, when authority orsupport is required by writers for a statement oftheir own, the reference is frequently to one ofOrmerod’s papers.

Dr. Ormerod married, in 1878, Mary Ellen, daughterof Edward Milner, F.L.S., of Dulwich, who died atthe beginning of the year. By her he had four sonsand four daughters. One of his sons is Chief Constableof Sussex, and one is Professor of Greek in the Univer-sity of Leeds. One of his daughters married Dr..T. B. Christopherson.