Volume 54 · Issue 04 · 1938

In order to provide adequate health protection for all classes of the population, it is essential that physicians should receive proper training in modern hygiene. This need was evident in all the countries visited during the study tour. The role of the medical practitioner in public health is much more important than one would assume from the time devoted to the teaching of hygiene in medical faculties." The responsibilities of the private practitioner as regards the health services organised by the State and by local authorities and his relationship to social insurance institutions and other medico-social organisations require on his pare a considerably greater knowledge than he now possesses concerning modern public health practice and medico-social probIems. He should acquire this knowledge during his medical course. The lectures, demonstrations and practical work given by the staff of the Department of Hygiene of the university do not suffice; the spirit of preventive medicine should permeate the whole of the curriculum. While these principles are generally accepted, they are very rarely put into practice, with the result that medical graduates are not adequately prepared to meet the social and public health responsibilities with which they are confronted.

A chemist's report upon the water and saline deficiency of the blood in malignant Asiatic Cholera, during an epidemic which swept Western Europe over 100 years ago, led Thomas Latta of Leith to introduce, and John Mackintosh of Edinburgh to establish, the use of intravenous saline infusion. (1) The enthusiasm with which the innovation was received is readily understood. There is no more dramatic picture to be found in the whole realm of medicine than that of the moribund victim of cholera returning to life, as the eyes lift again in their sockets and the bone outlines disappear, with the filling of the depleted tissues. All too often, however, the improvement was only temporaory, too frequently diarrhoea and vomiting set in with fever, cyanosis, profound collapse and death.

A Metron Reflex Drawing outfit obtained from Messrs. C. Baker, 224 High Holborn, London, has been in use in the Laboratory of the Malaria Bureau during several years, for micro. Drawing and for class demonstrations.

The term carotene is used to designate a group of provitamins consisting of alpha, beta and gamma carotene, and cryptoxanthin. These substances are the precursors of vitamin A, and are found as yellow-red pigments in a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. Certain physical differences characterize the above compounds which also differ biologically with respect to their vitamin A potency. Beta carotene yields twice as much vitamin as do the other three, and is used as a standard for the measurement of vitamin A, one international unit of vitamin A being the growth-promoting activity in rats of 0.0006 mg of standard beta carotene.

Too little is known by the average physician concerning the subject of paralysis of the vocal cords. To the physician the condition usuaIly suggests advanced lesions of the mediastinum; to the surgeon, the unfortunate results of too enthusiastically executed operations an the thyroid. Yet neither of these conditions is responsible for any 1arge proportion of these cases as seen by the otolaryngologist. Frequently no definite cause can be recognized. The present study covers a series of 36 cases of paralysis of the vocal cords seen at the Peiping Union Medical College between the years 1921 and 1936.

This condition is by no means very rare, many cases having been reported in medical literature but this is the first one which has come to our notice in Moukden, and so far as we know, the first reported in this journal.

Human parasitic infestation is an important Public Health question in China, but precise knowledge as to its incidence is very limited.

"Vegetable water" which is prepared by boiling vegetable leaves in water is widely used in infant feeding by pediatricians. The chief purpose of feeding infants with "vegetable water" is to supply vitamin C at a low cost, as oranges in summer time are a.s expensive in Hunan as in other places. Vegetables, on the other hand, are cheap and abundant in Hunan all the year round. Before popularising its use, it is, however, of great importance to determine the vitamin C. content of "vegetable water."