1612 appointed to the medical charge of the Military Prison at ARMY EXAMINA’rIONS AND FOHS. Aldershot. H. J. at Woolwich for Captain M’Grigor joins This is the season for holding; competitive examinations duty. for army candidates and it is likewise the time for the ARMY MEDICAL RESERVE OF OFFICERS. occurrence of darkness and fogs. No one can tell when he Surgeon-Lieutenant A. Y. Greenwood, 3rd Lancashire goes to bed at night whether he will or will not wake in the Royal Garrison Artillery (Volunteers), to be Surgeon-Lieu- morning in a dense fog rendering vehicular traffic or even tenant (dated Nov. 26th, 1904). ordinary street locomotion a slow and difficult or possibly an IMPERIAL YEOMANRY. impracticable undertaking. We have often wondered whether Denbighshire (Hussars) : Richard Geoffrey Williams to be any provision has been made in such circumstances for the Surgeon-Lieutenant (dated Nov. 26th, 1904). non-attendance of candidates at such examinations or for their being unavoidably delayed beyond the hour fixed for VOLUNTEER CORPS. their being present. They cannot all locate themselves close : 4th Volunteer Battalion the Rifle : King’s (Liverpool to the place of examination. It occurs to us that something E. L. his Regiment): Surgeon-Lieutenant Hughes resigns should be done to meet bonâ-jide cases of this sort if only as a commission (dated Nov. 26th, 1904). matter of justice to the candidates and to their parents who THE REPORT OF THE BUREAU OF MEDICINE AND SURGERY have been put to much expense in their education. OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY. THE WAR IN THE FAR EAST. The of the chief of the Bureau of report Surgeon-General, There is but little news of a general kind from the seat of Medicine and of the United States for the Surgery Navy, war and none of any special medical interest to be year 1904 is a document which will repay careful perusal. chronicled this week. The armies on the Shaho have had From it we learn that the of difficulty securing qualified some desultory fighting and the fierce assaults on Port Arthur medical men for the is rendered the fact navy greater by are still going on. But there is one matter of present and that a lower rate of pay in some grades is given in the navy growing importance which calls for comment. It requires than in the In the case of assistant army. surgeons no great exercise of the imagination to form some idea, even on shore the is 15 cent. less employed duty pay per if it be a very inadequate one, of the situation and of what than the pay received by assistant surgeons in the sister must be the hardship and suffering of the belligerent armies service. The of rank is dealt with and it question now wintering in Manchuiia. Their sufferings and hardships is that shall be asked to suggested Congress change must be considerable, as all the available sources of water- the name of the different as follows :-In of grades place supply for men and animals are frozen, the ice has to be and in the other surgeon-general, surgeon-admiral; grades, thawed, and there is said to be but a scanty supply of fuel. medical director to become medical surgeon-captain ; If all we hear about the army commanded by General inspector, surgeon-commander; surgeon, surgeon-lieutenant- Kuropatkin be true-viz., that the troops at Mukden and commander ; passed assistant-surgeon, surgeon-lieutenant; elsewhere in Manchuria are badly hutted and that the stores and The assistant-surgeon, surgeon-lieutenant (junior grade). of warm clothing are inadequate to meet all their require- recommendation made in two preceding reports for the ments-they will need all their stolid fortitude to sustain enactment of legislation authorising the employment under them in such circumstances. It is officially stated, however, the control of the Bureau of Medicine and of skilled Surgery that the health of the Russian army is fairly satisfactory, dentists for service in the navy is renewed. With reference but it cannot remain so under such conditions as are to the model hospital ship for 300 patients, of which plans described and, in addition to frostbite, dysentery and have been laid it is out that such a vessel down, pointed outbreaks of other forms of camp disease may be expected will far more efficient than a diverted from a prove ship to occur, if, indeed, these are not already prevalent. commercial use and hastily converted into a hospital in time These remarks equally apply to the Japanese armies, but of war. in their case it is stated that they are well supplied The health of the and Marine for the calendar Navy Corps with ivarm clothing of good design and quality and as shown the statistical returns was year 1903, by good, the comparative nearness of these armies to their base the ratio of admissions to the sick list per 1000 of strength will greatly facilitate the work of furnishing the being less than the average for the eight years prior Mikado’s forces in Manchuria with all the needful The ratio is than that to 1902. slightly greater, however, requisites for a winter campaign. The conditions in the for the last The of the active list year. average strength case of General Kuropatkin’s army are very different and the was which is an increase of about during year 1903 37,248, make the problem one of very great and increasing difficulty. over the the for one-fifth previous year, average strength 1902 To feed and to clothe such an enormous force operating at such The total number of admissions to for being 31,240. hospital a distance from Russia and to provide it with all necessary all causes was the ratio of 28,569, per 1000 strength being war material and to transport all the sick and wounded who 782’ 24, as compared with a ratio of 767’ 63 for the previous have to be removed from the Manchurian hospitals to base and for the There were year, 797’ 10 eight preceding years. hospitals in Russia will be a very great, difficult, and costly 24,545 admissions for disease and 4024 for injury, giving undertaking. ratios of 671’ 82 and 110 14 The respectively. correspond- Miss McCaul’s entitled Under the Care of the ratios for 1902 were 640 - 07 and 125 - 56. There were work, ing War is to be Messrs. Cassell 224 deaths during the year, giving a ratio of 6’ 01 per 1000, Japanese Office," published by which is less than that of the during the present week. It should, we think, prove both considerably previous year and instructive. or the of the interesting (6’75), average eight preceding years (6’ 78). The Medical has drawn the attention of 164 deaths occurred from disease, with a ratio of 4 ’ 40, and 60 Army Department the officers at home stations to the for from with a ratio of 1’60. There responsible necessity injury (including poison) the caused the of was a increase in admissions for diseases of the reducing expenditure by employment general civilian digestive apparatus. With the exception of the class of practitioners. "general infectious diseases" venereal diseases gave a greater number of sick days than any other class. The total of 114,571 sick days due to venereal disease is equal to the entire loss to the service of 314 men for the year. The total admissions for venereal disease during the year are Correspondence. 1207 in excess of 1902 and the total sick days are 22,572 in "Audi alteram partem." excess. This cannot be accounted for by the increase in strength. In comparing the above figures with those of the CANCER OF THE CERVIX COMPLICATING previous year it is noteworthy that wliile the ratio of admis- sions to the sick list per 1000 of strength is greater than in LABOUR. 1902, the mortality is not only less than that of 1902 but ’1’0 the Editors of THE LANCET. lower than the average for the past eight years. SIRS,—In THE LANCET of Nov. 19th, p. 1449, Dr. Herbert REGIMENTAL HOMES AT DEVIZES. Spencer advocated the old Porro-Cassarean operation with the At Devizes, on Nov. 24th, the Countess of Pembroke serre-nceud instead of conservative Cassarean section for two homes for disabled soldiers cases of cancer of the cervix uteri formally opened regimental inoperable complicatingt, which have been erected as a memorial to Prince Christian labour but he does not bring forward any case of his own in Victor and officers and men of the Wiltshire Regiment who support of his view. During the discussion which followed were killed during the South African war. - the reading of his valuable paper at the Obstetrical Society 1613 .of London on Nov. 2nd, Dr. Spencer asked for the experience kind of delinquency is far too much in evidence. As the of others and Dr. G. E. Herman, Dr. Cuthbert Lockyer, and writer of a modern history of medicine, referring to this myself each gave an instance of a successful conservative very subject, says : " There is a half-confessed leeling that Csesarean section under the circumstances named. No we are the men ; and that knowledge was born with us." I instances of Porro’s operation were cited. Thus the expressed beg leave to enter an emphatic protest against such selfish, practical experience of those present was in favour of the con- ridiculous, and unscientific conceit. servative operation. Dr. Herbert Spencer now quotes foreign It is a flaw in the character of the great Herbert Spencer statistics in favour of his view and he gives a 60 per cent.