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that a single night nurse be appointed, if only on trialfor six months, as a safeguard in case of sudden emer-

gency. The proposal, though at first favourably received,has been finally negatived, since it appears that manyother houses have no such arrangement. Any nightnursing required will therefore still be entrusted to

pauper inmates, or to the already overtaxed contingentof day nurses, There is, it is said, no need for any furtherprovision ; the majority of patients under treatment beingchronic invalids, a single nurse would be of little service,and the cost of several could not conveniently be met. Aswith most other discussions, there is truth in both of theseviews. It must, however, be sufficiently evident that theservice of a trained night nurse is no mere luxury. Some

developments of disease, as is well known, are usuallynocturnal ; death itself very commonly occurs during theearliest hours of the morning, while a fit or other suddenseizure may call for prompt attention at any time. The

request for at least one night nurse is therefore a veryreasonable one, and it is one which might be met withoutmuch difficulty by allotting night or day duty in rotation todifferent members of the nursing staff.

THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN AND "THEFIFTH YEAR."

THE recommendations of the General Medical Council in Ireference to medical education have already begun to bringforth fruit, for the General Council of the Aberdeen Univer-sity have passed a report of the Subcommittee on Medicinewhich embodies many valuable reforms. The standard of the

preliminary examination is to be raised, and this ordeal mustbe passed in all subjects before the medical curriculum isentered on. The curriculum is to be extended to five years,the number of systematic lectures reduced, and the fifthyear is to be devoted to clinical and practical work, andwill not involve compulsory attendance on University orother systematic lectures. Clinical and practical work areintended to mean hospital or dispensary attendance or

pupilage to a registered practitioner. Other resolutions

affecting the internal arrangements of the University, whichinclude the admission of women to all the Faculties, werealso carried. We congratulate the authorities of the northernUniversity on receiving the recommendations of the GeneralMedical Council so cordially, and in meeting them so

promptly. Such practical and decisive action is, we aresorry to say, not characteristic of many of our licensingboards, whether corporations or Universities. ,

THE HAGIOLOGY OF THE HEALING ART.

MEDICINE has her legendary saints as well as the Church,and a gallery of their portraits, in a literary sense, wouldbe quite as interesting and possibly as voluminous as the"Acta Sanctorum." Germany alone could furnish an

imposing contingent of such knights-errant of the healingart-rich as are her old monastic or municipal archives inmanuscript accounts of local heroes or heroines whorelieved the sick and the wounded in face of odds as

overwhelming as any surmounted in the annals of chivalry."Die Historie von Set. Quirinus" (Munich : R. Fischer) isa specimen-a very favourable one, we admit-of how muchthat is romantic may be unearthed from the dust heaps ofold libraries or rescued from the gradually fading mediumof oral tradition. The little volume above referred to istaken from such source? as these and from the books thathave been framed upon their testimony; and, what withits artistic illustrations and its 107 pages of carefully andscientifically sifted matter, it presents an ensemble ofhistoric fact and portraiture which the reader will find asfascinating as the most dramatic fiction of our own

day. The style retains the simplicity of the mediaevalchronicles from which it is, in great part, drawn, and,without affectation of archaism, contrives to impress onthe reader that lie is always in the atmosphere of the

legendary and the quaint. Saint Quirinus appears inthe successive stages of his eventful life-his wholecareer, in all its moving incidents, is put before us with apicturesque power that belongs to the best period of art,aesthetic and literary. The volume closes with specimensof old hymns, one of which has been set to music by thedirector of the Regensburg choir, Dr. F. X. Haberl, andwith the marvellous "Saga" of the origin of the Tegern-See.The author’s (or shall we say the authoress’s?) name is

represented by the initials A. R., discernible as those of alady belonging to a Bavarian ducal house, who has alreadyplaced the world of science, literature, and art under specialobligations. Her book, it is hoped, may stimulate othersof her compatriots to work as wisely and as well in thesame mine of semi-historic medical lore, and to make addi-tions to the portrait gallery she has so effectively begun tillthe connecting links between the mediaeval and the modernare complete. -

FINE FOR ACTING AS AN APOTHECARY.

AT Alfreton County Court, Judge Barber, Q.C., latelyheard a case in which the Master, Wardens, and Court ofAssistantsof the Society of Apothecaries of the City of Londonclaimed f:20 from Edward Merrick Greensill, a chemist anddruggist, with a midwifery diploma from the Coombe Hos-pital. On the strength of these facts he practised as a clubsurgeon, gave death certificates, attended cases of inflam-mation, &c. His Honour was very decided in saying thatsuch conduct constituted a breach of the Apothecaries Act,which, he was thankful to say, was still in force. Thedefendant had undoubtedly brought himself within reachof the law. His Honour was not disposed to abate thefine, for the defendant had long and persistently actedas an apothecary. The extent to which he had carriedthis practice was, in the estimation of the judge, anaggravation of the offence, and he ordered the payment of920 with costs. The Apothecaries’ Society deserve credit,for exposing such false practice.

PROFESSOR GAIRDNER AND THE WHITECROSS SOCIETY.

MANY apostles of purity exist in our profession, and have-spoken in manly terms, and with all the weight attachingto high medical authority, of the sin and folly of impurity.Amongst the latest of such utterances is that of ProfessorGairdner of Glasgow, who agreed to give an addressto the Edinburgh University White Cross Society. Dr.Gairdner discussed the question mainly from the standpointof Christianity, declaring that, speaking practically, hethought it impossible for a man to keep himself pure exceptthrough Christian influences. He claimed for Christianitythat it alone of all the religions and philosophies oflife had created for us a word (à&Ugr;&pgr;&eegr; ) in which lovecan be expressed without any coarzle or double meaning,and this even when it of necessity includes or cornpre-hends the sexual relation between man and wife. Beforethis the words used were of low and base import. By thesubstitution of the word (à&Ugr;à&pgr;&eegr; the whole conception of thesubject had been refined and spiritualised. In accordancewith this fact, the domestic principle-the principle of homeas connected with the sexual relation-has been sanctified,and the world has been taught by the Founder of Christi-anity that it is possible to speak even to degraded womenso as only to revive in them the dying embers of their ownself-respect. Dr. Gairdner’s address is published separatelyas the third of a first series, by the Darien Press, Bristo-