CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 332, 20 June 1911, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

MEASLES. . There is a well-defined epidemic ol measles in New Plymouth as there is in several other places in New Zealand. The medical superintendent of the Wei-1 lington Hospital has reported that the institution is badly overcrowded, and that the continued opening of public 'schools is conducive to the spread of infectious diseases. He thinks the schools ought to be closed for a month until the epidemic has died out. Many people's ideas in regard to measles arc curious. They believe that every child must have the disease, and the sooner the better. This isn't true. They re : gard it as a trifling matter. It is not a trifling matter. Thirteen thousand children die every year in England from after effects produced by measles. That means that parents are ignorant. The parent who allows a child with measles to be at large is not a good citizen, and not a good parent. A child is not a safe companion for other children during the whole period from tke beginning of the disease through the "peeling" process to normal health. The utmost care of the patient is necessary not only for the sake of outsiders, but because neglect may induce deafness, afflictions of the eyes, lung and kidney troubles, and so on. It is not kind to allow children to return to their usual habits the moment they appear to be normal, for the period of infectivity has not passed, and they may contract other and more serious complaints: Why measles is not ft notifiable disease we are unable to say. It should be . Local parents are asked to believe that a child is not really well enough to be at large and associate with companions for at least a month from the time the disease attacks it; that parents themselves may spread the disease, although not suffering from it; that it is infectious during the whole of the period even before the characteristic crescents of "spots" appear; that warmth and milk diet are necessary and that freedom to roam about is dangerous both to patient and everybody else.

THE DISCOVERER OF CHLOROFORM. Many London newspapers recently published articles on the centenary of the inrtn of Sir James Young Simpson, the discoverer of the anaesthetic virtues of choloroform. Sir James Simpson was born at Bathgate, Linlithgow, Scotland, on June 7,1841, a baker's son, the youngest of a family of eight. He early showed a peculiar talent for medical observation and research, and in his prosecution of his professional studies at the University of Edinburgh, which he entered at the age of fourteen years, he so attracted the notice of his teacners as to inspire all of them to take an active interest in his future career. He took his medical degree in 1832, his thesis on "Death from inflammation" winning tne highest admiration. Three, years later he was elected president of the Royal Medical Society—a rare distinction for one so young. Professor Thomson chose him as his assistant, and employed him in the preparation of his course of lectures on pathology. During the illness of the professor lie supplied his place in the lecture room with unusual skill and address. He then began practice on his own account, and in IS4O succeeded Professor Hamilton in the Chair of Midwifery. This position he held with yearly enhanced distinction, and by the rigidly scientific, while popularly attractive, character of his predilections contributed greatly to the renown of the Edinburgh school, Doth at home and abroad. He was indefatigable, amidst the distractions and cares of an extensive practice, in promoting the scientific perfection of his art, and his "Obstretric Memoirs" contains the fruit of much patient and ingenious research. The discovery by which he will ever be best remembered is that of the anaesthetic, virtues of choloroform. The so-called sulphuric ether had been previously employed in America by Dr. Morton, but to Sir James Simpson rightly belongs the credit of first, in March, 1847, introducing chloroform to the scientific world. Chloroform was discovered as <i chemical curiosity about the same time (1831) by Guthrie in America, Liobig in Germany, and Soube.iran in France.