102 GEORGE BUCHANAN AND THE HEALIKG ART.

In a paper of considerable interest and importance pub-lished in our columns3 Dr. TODD discusses very forcibly the

probable causes of the spread of the disease and offers some

practical suggestions for checking that advance. He pointsout that the disease spreads but slowly from an infected areaunless it is carried by an infected person into other localitiesand further that in the Congo Free State the disease has

spread along the main routes of communication and to a

much greater extent since the country has been opened out

by Europeans. The paper is illustrated by maps whichdemonstrate these facts in a striking manner and also showwhere imported cases have occurred in previously non-infected districts. Previously to 1884 sleeping sickness

appears to have been practically confined to the

Lower Congo and certain posts on the main river

as far as Bumba, while at the present time it occurs

along the whole Congo basin and also on the banks of

some of its tributaries as well as about Lake Tanganyikaand Lake Victoria Nyanza, while recently it has appeared onthe western shores of Lake Moero. It has also broken out

in the neighbourhood of Sierra Leone. Dr. TODD concludes I

that the uninfected areas of the Soudan, Northern Nigeria,German East Africa, and British Central Africa stand in the

gravest danger of being infected. From the nature of thingsit follows that the rational form cf prophylaxis would bethe prevention of entry of infected persons into a districtwhere glossina palpalis is known to exist and where the

disease does not occur. For this purpose Dr. TODD suggests11 the establishment of medical posts of inspection along thetrade routes leading from infected to uninfected districts

and the removal of infected persons from posts in uninfecteddistricts to places already infected."Owing to the prolonged course of the disease in many

cases, even as long as thtee or four years, it is obviouslynecessary if these recommendations are to be carried out

effectively that some means of early diagnosis should 1 eavailable. Fortunately, in the palpation and puncture of

glands as used by Dr. TODD and the late Dr. DUTTON,such a diagnostic means has been found. After an exa-

mination of 6358 apparently healthy negroes of all ages andboth sexes they came to the conclusion that every negrowhose cervical glands are enlarged without obvious causemust be considered to be a case of trypanosomiasis until the

contrary is proved. It has been shown that trypanosomescan easily be demonstrated in the fluid drawn from

such glands by a hypodermic syringe and Dr. DuTTON

and Dr. TODD found that though not infallible this

measure afforded an efficient means of diagnosis. It i-

obvious that we are face to face with a real dangerand that there is need for some endeavour to stop theadvance of the disease. The cause is now known and

the means of combating infection are apparent ; it is,therafore, a matter for the administration of the areas

in danger of infec ion to deal with. Neglect to carryout preventive measures must inevitably result in a

loss of life among the great native populations concerned

alarming to contemplate, especially when it is recalled thatthe disease has practically depopulated some of the districtsin which it has appeared. Moreover, the danger to Europeans

3 THE LANCET, July 7th, 1906, p. 6.

engaged in these distlicts is one to be borne in mind, since

they possess no immunity to the disease other than that

offered by the greater amount of clothing worn, and therecent lamented death of Lieutenant FORBES TULLOCH,R.A.M.C., from trypanosomiasis serves to emphasise this

danger. We may express the hope that the authorities

will carry out without delay some such measures as thoseoutlined by Dr. TODD.

Annotations.

GEORGE BUCHANAN AND THE HEALING ART.

.. Ne quid nimis." "

George Buchanan was born 400 years ago, and the Uni-versity of St. Andrews has just commemorated the anni-versary of its most di-tinguihed alumnus. Sir DouglasMaclagan, in a note to his - College Lays," reviewedin these pages,l refers to the tr.-tdition that the " cap " im-posed on the heads of successful candidates for the summi inmedicina honores at Edinburgh was made out of the panta.

loons of George Buchanan. If such be the case, the

graduates of the "Grey Metropolis" may be excused for

feeling a certain pride in having passed into the humanest ofprof<ssions under cover (so to speak) of " the greatest ofthe Humanists," of one who, whether in prose or verse,never fails to speak in the highest praise of the healingart, who even in his "Rerum Scoticarum Historia," or

in his " De Jure Regni apud S.otos," or in drama, elegy,lyric, and epigram goes out of his way to eologise a pro-fession fraught with benefits appreciated by all good citizens- boy none more than by enlightened laymen like himself.Laat week academic Scotland has been celebrating thequatercentenary of his birth, thus making tardy amends toone whose nianes have been even more neglected than theliving man, and doing something, let us hope, to deflect thepoint of the witty Irish scholar’s home-thrust : " The Scotsare more given to boast of Buchanan’s name than to readhis writings." All that is characteristic of his compatriots- " the good and the not so good "-was represented in

George Buchanan. He had the love of knowledge for its ownsake which made him from his boyhood a searcher, Ulysses-like, after fresh experiences, passing from college to camp,from professorial chair to diplomatic chancery, lettingslip no opportunity of learning, or of turning to accountwhat he had learced, till the wandering fit-or shall we

say the mania errobtinda ?-left him, a returned exile,to spend the evening of his days in his native Scotlandand to repay that ‘‘ arida nutrix" (if not "injasta.noverca") with services which ought to have put her

to the blush. The world on which he entered was

writhing in the strait-waistcoat of scholasticism from

which it had to be rescued by scholarsbip, and Buchanan,like Erasmus and the other Humanists, set himself to thecongenidl task. There reigned an Aristotelianism whichwas far removed from Aristotle, inculcated in a Latinitywhich was not Latin, both protected by a Church whichhad declined from its early purity to become the

nursing-mother of obscurantism in the academic sphereand of despotism in the political. Panoplied in the

learning of the Sorbonne, a French university many"finished to the finger-nail," combining the lore of Erasmusand the humour of Rabelais with a poetic vein and a gift ofverse denied to both, Buchanan served in the anti-scholaatiocampaign under a flag inscribed-

" Antiquam exquirite matrem,"

1 THE LANCET, Nov. 27th, 1886, p. 1025.

103

and with all available equipment (satire by preference) herecalled the iron age of deductive logic with its verbal

Spinngeweberei to the golden age of untrammelled thoughtand genuinely inspired genius, constraining the world (as inthe tale of Aladdin) to exchange the feeble, foetid lamps ofthe new order for the bright, fragrant lamps of the old. Inthis enterprise he developed and displayed a genius for

sarcasm, for " irony, that master spell," which carried

strongholds and levelled bulwarks impregnable against otherartillery-indeed, to this day he has his equal to findin a combination of delicate raillery and high-wroughtinvective which suggest Horace and Juvenal rolled into one.The Fratres Fraterrimi and the " Franciscanus " remain

among the masterpieces of satirical production and can

never be left out in any roll-call of the forces to which theRenaissance owes its most salutary and enduring conquests.This is no place to re-open the embittered controversy as tohis relations with his Queen, Mary of Scotland, and

we may pass on to his signal services to education,services which every instinct of his nature urged himto render, lover of ingenuous youth as he was and

possessed (as one who knew him well puts on record) "e&acirc;

ingenii dexteritate ut cum pueris repuerascere et ad omnesomnium aetatum usus modeste et sapienter sese accommodareet vellet et posset" (with such nimble flexibility of mind,that with boys he had the power, as he had the will, to

become a boy again and, with equal modesty and wisdom,to adapt himself to all the requirements of any stage oflife). What a subject for a painting does he not furnish byhis latest attitude when in his 77th year he-the greatHumanist, Professor, and Diplomatist-was seen from hisdeath-bed teaching a little boy his alphabet, a, b, ab ; e, b,eb! Old Chaucer’s immortal line on the Oxford clerk-

"And gladlie wolde he lerne and gladlie teche"-

has had no finer exemplar than George Buchanan who,holding all knowledge in reverence, knew no greater delightthan imparting it and who (to conclude with what weset out by remarking) had a specially " warm side" for themedical art, dwelling fondly in his great history on theproficiency of the ancient Scottish kings and nobles inthe treatment of the wounds which they were so prone toinflict, and commemorating in a lovely poem in the Ovidiandistich the tender care and skill with which he was cured ofa severe (and admirably described) attack of the " morbusarticularis "-

" Saepe mihi medicas Groscollius explicat herbasEt spe langueutem consilioque juvat;

Saepe mihi Stephani solertia. provida CarliAd mala praesentem tristia portat opem."

Characteristically enough, physicians have been among hisgreatest eulogists and most effective commentators from GuyPatin and Jean Pincier in his own century to Arthur

Johnston in the century following, and so on to Robert

Sibbald, Archibald Pitcairne, Tobias Smollett, and "Zeluco "

Moore in the next. Francis Adams and Sir JamesMackintosh may be mentioned as among his ardent admirersin the nineteenth century ; and in this, not yet in its teens,on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of his birth, weventure to offer this modest immortelle to his manes.

THE MEAT OF THE PEOPLE.

FEW people are aware when ordering a joint of meat atthe butcher’s how many various sorts of meat can be pur-chased in the London market. The ordinary housewifeorders a sirloin of beef for the Sunday dinner and makesno inquiry as to its origin, and is also most likely abso-

lutely ignorant of the fact that it may be anything butEnglish beef. Even the English beef coming intothe London markets varies much in quality fromthe prime Scotch ox or heifer beef, down to that

from plain cows, which is quite wholesome though poor

in quality, and is chiefly used for sausages. Four-fifthsof the meat sold in the London market is of foreignorigin and ranges in quality. Thus there is the best UnitedStates beef brought over in a chilled, not frozen, state (thisbeef is preferred by many English people to that of homeorigin and is largely used in London) ; then there is theCanadian beef brought over alive and killed at DeptfordMarket, the Dutch brought over here fresh, the New Zealandand Australian beef which comes over here frozen, and theArgentine meat which comes over in a chilled state. Allthcse different kinds of beef can be bought in the Londonshops under the generic name of "beef" and as veryfew people know enough about beef to enable themto inquire as to its origin it is practically sold as

English meat. The same arguments hold good as to thesale of mutton and of lamb. How many housekeeperswhen they see the advertisement" Canterbury lamb is nowin season" know that Canterbury in New Zealand, notCanterbury in Kent, is referred to ? Frozen mutton can be

carefully thawed and made to look like English mutton andcan be, and is, old as such. THE LANCET has always raisedits voice against substitution in any form and the selling offoreign meat without declaring it to be such is substitution.It is not contended that foreign meat, frozen or otherwise,which has been subjected to proper inspection is not fit forfood, or is even much inferior to English meat, but to sellit without declaring it to be of foreign origin is not fair tothe public. In one large firm of cooperative stores in

London attention is drawn to their price for meat beinghigher than at other stores, on account of the fact that theysell exclusively British meat.

THE RELATION OF FERTILITY IN MAN TOSOCIAL STATUS.

DURING the last few years the question of the physicaldeterioration of the population has greatly agitated thepublic mind and has elicited all sorts of opinions, beingaccepted by some as an undoubted fact and vehementlydenied by others. The principal argument in favour of theexistence of deterioration, or at least the argument that hasattracted most attention, is the high percentage of rejectionsamong recruits seeking to enter the army-young men towhom the recruiting sergeant has made no objection but

whom the medical officers refuse on the ground of physicalimperfections. To this the other side replies that the highproportion of rejections is illusory as an index to thecondition of the population at large and that the recruits sofar from being average samples of the wage-earning classesare for the most part mere wastrels whose physical andmental incompetence handicap them in the labour market.The arguments on either side are therefore incomplete andinconclusive, but apart from the rejections of recruits thereare many data from which some inferences may be drawnas to the physical condition of the nation. There are,of course, the death-rates of various classes at various

ages, the duration of life in selected classes as shown

by the results of life assurance and annuity offices,the birth-rate, the marriage-rate, the proportion of

persons following indoor and outdoor occupations, returnsof able-bodied and sick paupers, lunacy returns, the

, consumption of certain articles of food and drink rela-

tively to the population, and so on. Among these variousfactors in national well-being or the reverse none is moreimportant than the fertility of the people and some of

. the questions herein comprised have been studied in a mono-

graph 1 written by Mr. David Heron, being one of the, memoirs issued from the Drapers’ Company biometri

laboratory in connexion with University College, London.

Published by Dulau and Co., 37, Soho-square, London, W. Pp. 22.Price 3s.