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entrance examination has to have any value it must bein the hands of a single person ? P That any reliancecould be placed upon the reports of 100 different doctorson 100 different nurses as a result of answering such aloosely-termed questionnaire is, to say the least, extremelydoubtful. Yet the form explicitly starts -off by saying :" This form will be the basis of the nurse’s permanentdossier." Too often nurses’ sickness is in the care of amember of the staff who is already burdened by manyduties so that the " nurses’ home " visit is just anotherpiece of extra work to be " pushed in " somehow. Is ittoo much to suggest that one of the younger men (orwomen) on the staff should receive a specific appoint-ment as medical officer to the staff : and that his dutiesshould involve the thorough examination of intendingentrants as well as their medical care after joining thestaff ? Such appointments should receive adequateremuneration from the hospital authority. The Goode-nóugh report attaches some importance to the properhealth supervision of the medical student and suggeststhat such a procedure would be a valuable lesson forhim. Is the same not true for the nurse ?One final point might be raised. Is it not time that

the whole business of the nurse’s health were entirelyremoved from the domain of the matron and the superin-tendent ? No doubt in many hospitals these persons dotheir part exceedingly fairly, but in no other walk oflife has an individual to act at the same time as employerand medical attendant. There is little doubt that manynurses remain on duty when they should be in bedbecause they fear the matron’s reaction. Too often asuperintendent is biased towards getting a nurse backquickly to duty because he knows the wards are under-staffed.

Glasgow, W2. THOMAS ANDERSON.

TREATMENT OF MALARIA

SiR,-You published a letter of mine on June 17,1944, on the treatment of malaria by the intramuscularinjection of solvochin 2 c.cm. twice daily for 4 daysfollowed by oral mepacrine for subtertian and oral

quinine for benign tertian patients. A follow-up ofthese patients has recently given the followingresults.We received 51 replies to 79 inquiries. Since most of

the patients were merchant seamen, and many of themIndian and Chinese, the proportion of answers seemssatisfactory. Of the 51 patients, 36 report no recur-rence ; 15 report one or more relapses, but of these4 occurred only after further exposure to infection ;3 more report only a single relapse and this not medicallyconfirmed ; and there remain only 8 who have relapsedwithout exposure to fresh infection and who haverequired further treatment. In this small series therelapse-rate is, therefore, about 28% on the worstinterpretation of the figures, but deducting 4 patientswho had been re-exposed and 3 whose relapse isdoubtful the figure becomes about 16%.

I would not wish to make too much of such a smallexperience, but the results appear sufficiently good tojustify further work on the same lines and no change isbeing made in the routine treatment in my wards. It isgreatly to be hoped that a clinical trial on a larger scalemay be undertaken.

Intramuscular quinine causes some local muscle necrosis(Hawking, F. Brit. med. J. 1945, i, 412), but this is

probably true of many other drugs injected in this wayand the protein shock produced by the necrosis mayeven be beneficial.

‘

Harley Street, Wl. ALEC WINGFIELD.

DEMOBILISATION OF DOCTORSSiB,—On June 9 you published a letter from me in

which I endeavoured to give some concrete evidence ofthe wastage of medical officers in the Forces. It mayinterest you to know that the unit 1800 strong mentionedin my last letter has now dwindled to 900, whilst thenumber of doctors borne, despite the acute shortage, hasrisen to four.’ MEDICAL OFFICER.

AT a meeting of the senate of the National Universityof Ireland on July 11 Mr. F. J. Lavery was appointedlecturer in ophthalmology.

ObituaryTHOMAS HENRY BELT

M D, B SC TORONTO, M C P S ONT.

Dr. Belt died at the age of 44 on March 7 after a long’

illness which for years he had diligently sought help tocure. Not until the last few years did it seriously inter-

, fere with his urge to search and teach the truth.He was born in Ontario, Canada, the son of an Anglican

clergyman. After matriculating at 18 he worked forthree years before entering the University of Toronto in1922. During his medical course he was one of theintellectually and socially brilliant men of his year. Inhis final year he was president of the- students’ medicalsociety and chairman of the students" court of the

, university. His energy, his intelligence, and his scin-tillating (if somewhat cynical) wit added much to manyuniversity activities both during his student days and till1937 when he came to England.Before qualifying in 1928 he was undecided as to’

whether he should become a pathologist or a psychiatrist,but his interests in pathology won. Two years as fellowunder Professor Klotz were followed by a year at Breslauand Frankfort under Professors Aschoff and Fischer-

. Wasels. Returning to Toronto he was lecturer inpathology till 1935. He became coroner’s pathologist in1934. In 1937 he was appointed -senior assistant in

pathology at the British Postgraduate Medical School.Belt’s interests and assets were evenly divided between

teaching and research. His wit enlivened his demon-strations and lectures and his energy led to painstakingresearch work, the results of which will be of lasting prac-tical value. His early attention to yellow fev.ftr was largelydetermined by the influence of his first -teacher, but hesoon found his personal interest settling on diseases ofthe lung. His published work.on pulmonary embolismand the pneumoconioses-the most important of thelatter in the Medical Research Council’s Special ReportSeries-shows how his interests were not only those of a

. scientist curious for truth but also those of a physicianwith a strong desire to help others. Even as a morbidanatomist his thoughts were never far from the personinvolved. Although Tommy Belt, dying before hisprime, will long be remembered for his teaching and hiswork, lie will mostly be remembered for his capacity forkindness and for making friends wherever he went.

His wife and only child have been for the past fewyears in Canada. W. C. M. S.

GREGORY KAYNE

M D LOND., M R C P, D P H

Dr. Kayne, who died on June 29 at the early age of44, was educated at Leeds and St. Bartholomew’sHospital. From 1933 to 1935 he held a Dorothy TempleCross research fellowship, and his further studies led himto Paris, Barcelona, and Copenhagen. He entered.the tuberculosis service of the Middlesex county councilin 1935, becoming resident medical officer, and laterdeputy medical superintendent, at Clare Hall. Here, in afew years- of hard clinical work, he assembled valuableobservations and built up a mature experience, the fruitof which appears in a book on pulmonary tuberculosis,jointly written with a pathologist (W. Pagel) and athoracic surgeon (the late Laurence O’Shaughnessy), andpublished in 1939. With his literary, editorial, andclinical gifts he combined an ability for medical adminis-tration to which the organisation of the Hounslow chestclinic bears witness.

" Kayne’s main interest," writes a colleague, " lay inthe clear representation of controversial problems-the extraction of what could be safely concluded aftera careful survey of the material available. He was notthe man to be satisfied with a superficial sifting of prosand cons ; he would never evade difficulties, but wouldwork on. after a day overflowing with professional duties,until he had found his way through the literature what-ever its magnitude. A thorough command of modernlanguages, an unusual capacity for logical thinking, anda critical understanding of the most urgent problemsof tuberculosis, enabled him to give masterly reviewsof the BCG question, of heredity and immunity in rela-tion t tuberculosis, and of the control of tuberculosis