Volume 66 · Issue 03 · 1948

The Red Cross Society is an international organization bringing together no less than sixty-one national Red Cross societies and forty-seven national governments throughout the world. It is pleasing to note that our government and our National Red Cross Society are both full-fledged members in good standing of this great international family.

Since the formation of the Association, several efforts have been made to agree on an emblem for official use by the C.M.A., but for one reason or another, offical sanction was not given until recently.

Gaucher's disease, first described by Gaucher in 1882, is a familial affection due to a disturbance in the lipoid metabolism resulting in the deposit of kerasin, a cerebroside, in the reticulo-endothelial cells. Clinically, it is characterized by a progressive splenomegaly appearing early in childhood, anemia, leucopenia and often hepatomegaly and thrombocytopenia with bleeding tendency. It is not infrequently associated with the presence of a brownish yellow discoloration of the skin and wedge-shaped pingueculae. Moderately advanced cases often show typical osseous changes. Acute fulminating forms may present severe neurological symptoms with a rapid fatal course. Lesions in the lungs, kidneys and lymph nodes have been described. Liver cirrhosis as a late manifestation of the disease has also been reported. Gaucher's disease is generally regarded as a rare condition occurring predominantly in the Jewish race. The following report deals with probably the first case seen in this country.

Tubercilosis, which results in the formation of cold abscesses or chronic discharging sinuses, is said to be the most common affection of the chest wall. The disease is rarely primary, but is usually secondary to tuberculosis elsewhere, especially in the lungs and pleura.

In earlier years, it was recognized that tsutsugamushi disease occurs principally in Japan and. Formosa (tsutsugamushi disease or Japanese river fever), British Malaya (rural tropical typhus or "scrub" typhus), Netherlands East Indies (mite fever of Sumatra), Northeastern India and Simla hills (Indian typhus of Proteus vulgaris OXK type) and the northeastern coast of Queensland, Australia (Queensland coastal fever) (1, 2) More recently, as a result of military operations, its distribution has been considerably extended in the Southwest Pacific and the Far East (3/7).

Leukemia is today, still an incurable disease, and academic controversies are raging over its etiology, one school favouring the infective theory and the other the neoplastic theory of origin.

Trachoma, one of the common chronic diseases in China, is also one of our most important medical and public health problems, since it cause blindness either directly ot indirectly. An analysis of 1,017 cases seen at our Eye Clinic between September 1946 and March 1947 is herewith presented.

Post-partum sterilization has been a subject of much interest during recent years. Adair and Brown (1) reported in 1939 a series of 50 cases done within 24 hours after delivery, to determine the efficacy and safety of such a procedure.

Several methods are available for transplantation of skin, the choice of which depends on the type of skin needed to fill the defect. The thickness of the graft varies from the thin razor graft as in the Ollier-Thiersch graft, to the thick split graft and to the full thickness skin graft.

Available records seem to indicate that the average weight of Chinese newborns is not only lower than those in Western countries, but also varies in different regions in China.