Very few members, however, take the trouble to attend, leaving the work for those who attend. As one of the Committee of Management, I am astonished to hear that no motion is allowed to be proposed unless it has the sanction of the chairman. Our chairman is a most tolerant, indulgent, and liberal-minded gentleman in every sense of the word, and acts most fairly in all the duties of his office. He even goes to the extent of asking if any member has anything to suggest or say on the subject of discussion before he expresses his own opinion. I cannot, therefore, see how the society can be called a one man society.
I quite agree with one of your correspondents that this society is of great importance to the profession, and that it is most discreditable that the annual increase of its members should not be greater. I also agree with the appointment of provincial members, but the difficulty is to get them to join. To spend the remainder of the 10 per cent management fund, after paying all necessary expenses of management which is now transferred to the different branches of the fund, were spent in advertising would be of very little service to us in increasing our members. Our society is well known through the medical press, and through the British Medical Journal in particular.
If we paid travelling expenses, and each member of the Committee of Management for each attendance, our funds I fear would be greatly run upon, and our increasing annual expenditure for sickness and accident (this last year amounting to the sum of £15,114) should caution us to be extra careful in our management, and husband our resources against any evil times of sickness, especially as so many old established insurance companies have amalgamated to reduce their expenses.
I am of opinion also that the appointment of local agencies would be beneficial, and if we resorted to the old custom of having a room at the annual meetings of the British Medical Association, and distributed our reports and circulars to the members present, also would be advantageous. I am aware this custom was given up as it was considered not to pay. At all events it would tend to keep the society before the medical profession. I fear the unsettled state of political affairs, and consequences of bad trade, etc., which has affected all classes of the community, more or less, and medical men most acutely in particular, is the chief cause of our trouble —I am, etc.,
Sir,—The letter of Drs. Herman and Swinford Edwards, and your leading article on insurance in this week's issue, draw attention to certain aspects of sickness and accident insurance for medical men which it is well to emphasize. In the Medical Sickness Society the profession possess a mutual friendly society which is well and economically managed, is financially strong, and which charges remarkably low premiums for the benefits offered. I have been a member of this society for fifteen years and I feel convinced that we are fortunate in possessing so zealous, painstaking, and unselfish a chairman and executive committee. I find that the claims of members in case of sickness are dealt with in a prompt, just and generous manner. It is therefore very regrettable to find that a larger proportion of the medical and dental professions have not availed themselves of this excellent opportunity of making some provision for themselves against the chances of accident or disease. Many medical men have unfortunately, I find, been induced by the ingenious arguments of plausible and persistent agents to take out policies in certain proprietary companies where the premiums are at least 30 per cent. higher for the same kinds of benefit. Still more astounding, in my opinion, is the popularity of a certain scheme of fever and accident insurance offered to subscribers by an otherwise serious and valuable medical periodical. The policy issued under this scheme gives such limited and inadequate protection, that I venture to say, it would not, on its own merits, appeal to any reasonable man. And yet it is generally known that hosts of medical men have become subscribers to the periodical on account of the tempting offer of a free policy of insurance against fever and accidents. I feel so impatient about this want of discrimination and common sense on the part of my professional brethren, that whenever the subject of this fever and accident policy is brought up, I am in the habit of remarking, that I do not like to get a teapot thrown in with a pound of tea, but prefer the value of the purchase money to be in the tea itself, and that when I do require a teapot I buy one in the open market of a size and quality to suit my own tastes and requirements.—I am, etc.,
The Services.
Royal Army Medical Corps (Territorial).
Lowland Mounted Brigade Field Ambulance.
A series of three week-end camps has been held by this unit at Darnley Rifle Range, about five miles from the Glasgow head quarters. About thirty men attended each week end, and received practical instruction in pitching tents and marquees, building field kitchens, digging latrines, preparing destructors, etc. Special instruction was given in cooking, and a lecture on sanitation was delivered each week on Sunday. The men were most fortunate in having excellent weather, with the exception of the first Sunday. Valuable instruction was afforded in work which could otherwise only be learnt at the annual training in camp, and the men with this preliminary training will profit much more during camp.
The camp of the unit begins on June 18th at Biggar, Lanarkshire. The Lowland Mounted Brigade, consisting of four regiments of yeomanry, with the transport and supply column and field ambulance, will be encamped for fifteen days, the units being located at Biggar, Lanark, Symington, and Douglas, and a most instructive programme of combined training has been arranged. The field ambulance is under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel R. T. Halliday, with Major H. Wright Thomson, second in command.
Glasgow Units.
The annual church parade of the Glasgow units of the R. A. M. C (T.) took place on the 12th June in the Bute Hall of Glasgow University, Principal Sir Donald MacAlister, K. C. B., and Professor Stewart, D. D., taking part. The units represented were the Lowland Mounted Brigade Field Ambulance, the 1st and 2nd Lowland Field Ambulances, and the third and 4th Scottish General Hospitals. The Rev. Thos. Adamson, D. D., Corps Chaplain, preached the sermon, and a collection was taken on behalf of the Queen Victoria Memorial School for the Sons of Scottish Soldiers and Sailors.
Obituary.
Elizabeth Blackwell, M.D.,
Consulting Physician, New Hospital for Women.
Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell died at Hastings on May 31st, in her ninetieth year, after a long illness, which would seem to have originated in a fall while on a visit to Scotland in 1907. She was the first woman to be admitted to the British Medical Register, and her success is the more notable in that, apart from difficulties brought about by the total novelty of the idea of a woman studying medicine, she had to contend with one experienced by many male students, namely, lack of means. She was the daughter of a Bristol sugar refiner, who, emigrating to the United States in 1832, died a few years later, leaving hardly any fortune behind him and a family of nine children, headed by three girls, of whom Elizabeth Blackwell, then aged 17, was the youngest. To keep the family going this trio opened a small school, carrying it on successfully for four years, until a brother was old enough to begin a business life. Elizabeth Blackwell was then persuaded, somewhat against her will, to see if medicine did not offer her a career, and finally was accepted as a pupil at the medical school carried on at Geneva University in the State of New York. She was admitted to the school as the result of a vote among its students, who, from beginning to end, treated her with admirable courtesy. On one occasion the anatomy teacher warned her to absent herself during a particular dissection, but she replied that she was a student, and a student only, and would attend it, unless her fellow-students wished her not to do so. The result was that she took her place as usual, her fellow-students carefully abstaining from any kind of conduct which might possibly accentuate the awkwardness of the situation. On leaving this school with the degree of M.D. in 1849, she spent two years in Europe, dividing her time between St. Bartholomew's, where she was welcomed by the then
