1191

In England Now

A Running Commentary by Peripatetic Correspondents

THERE was a time (it seems odd to think of it now) when weknew very little about libraries. We began our official career asa custodian of books some years ago, as a member of thePreclinical Library Committee, recommending books in a care-free way and adopting a proprietorial air over the journal rackswhen we visited our domain. By diligent attention to detail werapidly climbed the ladder of promotion to the post of Chair-man, and in counsel with our studious and reliable PreclinicalLibrarian we developed such striking lines of policy as theprovision of red linoleum for the floor and the planting offlame-trees outside the windows to keep the sun off. We evenasked the university for an air-conditioning unit so that thestudents might read without the risk of heat exhaustion.

Naturally, subversive notions of this kind could not be toleratedin any respectable university, and we awoke one morning to findthat we had been kicked upstairs into membership of theUniversity Library Committee itself. This body operates on analtogether more rarefied plane, meeting in the Vice-Chancellor’sroom and fortifying itself with tea and chocolate biscuits.After our translation we made a general tour of the University

Library to examine the ramifications of our new responsibility.We prowled at will through the forbidden hinterland, enteringthe reference staff-room, the cataloguing staff-room, the ordersroom, and the acquisitions department. We visited the bindery,the photographic room, and the book-lift. A chat on logisticswith our learned and genial Librarian revealed to us that eachundergraduate reader required 25 sq. ft. of space, and each

postgraduate 35 sq. ft., that the accepted ratio of seats to full-time students is 1 : 3, and that the standard height of bookstacks is 7 ft. 6 in. The whole atmosphere was quiet andscholarly, far removed from that of our early struggles in thePreclinical Library.

Finally we visited the reading-rooms. The books did not

frighten us so much-after all, we had been nipping in and outto borrow Trollope for years, and it had not escaped our noticethat there were other sorts of books around-it was the journalswhich pointed up our narrow-minded professional outlook.In agriculture, for example, it seems that they read BeefSituation and Herbage Abstracts. The chemists receive, amongothers, the Perfumery and Essential Oil Record, and Pipe RollSociety is required reading for lawyers. In education they spendhappy hours reading Let’s Dance, or, more soberly, Laban Artof Movement, and, for a dreamy mood, the enigmatic Etude.The zoologists are addicted to Insects Sociaux and Tuatara, andthe psychologists find instruction as well as relaxation in

studying the Journal of Projective Technique. The engineers-solid earthy creatures-while away their long weekends withBeama, Diesel Engine Users’ Association, and Muck Shifter.At the next meeting of the Library Committee I am going to

suggest that some of these journals should be routed throughthe Preclinical Library to broaden, for the medical student, thestraitened educational experience which we all so muchdeplore. It is safe to say that no-one could read Muck Shifterand remain unbroadened, and a study of Beef Situation couldonly expand the restricted technical horizon. In return wecould offer the Faculty of Arts a choice of Brain or Gut, and theFaculty of Education might like to glance through a few recentissues of Blood.

* * *

One of my quirks is to write down, in a big exercise book,what I think of each book I read. I have just been looking backat what I recorded twenty years ago about Lady Chatterley’sLover when I read it at the age of twenty-five:

" I think it’s a good book-not by any means pornography. I thinkit’s a good story and I think the ’ message ’ of the coming downfall ofindustrial civilisation unless we have more ’ tenderness ’ is a veryfeasible idea. But I don’t like the coldness of it-it’s very hard andbare-there’s no happiness in the book: but there was no happiness inLawrence’s heart when he wrote it. I liked it better than Sons andLovers, but they share this barren chilliness that’s so dispiriting.

Strangely enough, both books are also at times highly romantic, andthe descriptions of the countryside and the flora and fauna are almostlyrical. He was a queer mixture: more of a poet than anything else, inthe sense of temperament. There are one or two surprising bits ofgood characterization and action-story-telling in this book: as, forinstance, the time that Clifford’s chair wouldn’t go up the hill."

I had forgotten all about the incident of Clifford’s chair, butI suppose the remarkable thing about these comments is thatthey include no mention of four-letter words. It looks as thoughtheir presence made no great impact upon me.

"" "" ""

My happiest memories of that pharmaceutical feast, theLondon Medical Exhibition, go back to 1946. As a first-yearpreclinical student I had borrowed my father’s invitation. Itlent me a spurious eminence and opened every door, and I evenended up with a free tea. Still, even this year, over the secondstall of this decorous and decorated market-place I met mytennis partner of ten years ago; and we had exactly the rightamount of time to catch up with our news. Round the cornerbehind a cardiograph or something, the size of a house,meandered my first medical superintendent-long sinceabolished poor man. At this point it struck me that the exhibi-tion should stimulate the reunion aspect. Perhaps the

prospectus could. allot days and times so that the old boys ofSt. Cecil’s, say, would know there was the most chance ofseeing old pals at 3.30 on Tuesday.

’*’ ’*’ ’*’

The undertaker’s clerk and I met over a cremation form. Thenew crematorium, it appeared, had been open for over twomonths. " Oh yes, it’s doing very well, I believe-and fancyyou not knowing it was open all this time, doctor."

’*’ ’*’ ’*’

A difficult problem in human rights was raised last year bya call from the local vet, whose practice covers one of theremoter valleys of our western fringe; a valley whereGovernment had early insisted that all cattle should be healthy.Within the last few months, he declared, 14 fine Friesians hadbecome violently tuberculin-positive, and had therefore gonethe way of all flesh at great expense to the taxpayer; did I knowanything, he asked, about Farmer Cobbleigh, who looked veryunwell, and would I please take any necessary steps ?

This local notable’s records showed that he had indeed beentreated some years before with antibacterial agents -for a largepleural effusion, but had absconded and stoutly refused ourfurther attentions. Ignobly, I asked the health visitor to callon him, but she found the portcullis firmly down. His familydoctor went into the assault next, but was met with abuse andshowers of stones (well aimed from the spinning gallery).Finally, the senior partner from the next valley donned a tinhat, and took the place by storm in his Landrover, after whichhe carried Cobbleigh in triumph directly to the hospital. Hischest radiograph showed galloping consumption of suchexuberant quality that no normal lung was to be seen. Now,after a year in hospital, he is no longer infectious, and lessbreathless and more robust than most people; and he hasperhaps wisely obtained work as a clerk.

There was no further epidemiological problem, for he hadno human contacts at all; in fact he had done all the milkinghimself for years for this very reason.

.........

I have had a scooter, of one kind or another, for some years,but until lately I did not feel it belonged with my colleagues’motor-cars. I used to park it a little way from the main entrance,and I always removed my crash helmet before I went inside thehospital. But now at last, the scooter has been accepted as ameans of transport for the medical profession. In the paper theother day I read the headline " Drugs Stolen from Doctor’sScooter

... ’*’ ""

In a transatlantic journal I came across a report on

" Salmonellosis spread by a dietary supplement of AvianSource ". Pate de foie gras was my first guess; or could it belarks’ tongues ? No-egg nog.