MEDICAL SQUABBLES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 15, 18 January 1905, Page 3

MEDICAL SQUABBLES.

(To the Editor.) Sir,—The squabbles of the medical staffs of the Auckland and Blenheim: Hospitals, telegraphed as they have been over the whole colony, have called public attention to the peculiarly feminine nature of many doctors. I cannot call them medical men. They, quarrel like the members of a mother's; meeting or the A.W.C.T.U. The fact is that they are jealous; they resent any; one thinking any other member of the profession superior to themselves. If they are discovered in making an error in diagnosis they are furious; if they, can discover that any other practitioner has made such an error they are jubilant. They have, in fact, all a woman's faults without her virtues. Now, if the public really want to reduce the mortality and improve the general health of the colony, what they should do is to move Mr Seddon to assemble Parliament and pass a law banishing every qualified medical practitioner from New Zealand, give him a month to sell off in, and if any remained, collect them together and dump them down in the Society Islands, where there are still a few cannibals left. Many years ago I made some investigations as to the annual rate of mortality in a purely rural district of New Zealand. For ten years it had only; averaged five per thousand annually!' Where there are qualified surgeons the mortality is at least nine to ten. Comment is needlesatr-I am, etc., ;j ■ M.D. j Ponsonby-road, January 17. 4 THE INCREASE OF DRUNKENNESS, (To the Editor.) Sir,—Every true man and woman must! be grieved at the deplorable increase oi convictions for drunkenness, as reported in last evening's paper. An increasa; of 409 for the year is sorry reading indeed for all who have the interests of the community at heart. It is an anomaly that, notwithstanding the increase in the no-license vote throughout the city, there is such a corresponding increase in drunkenness. What are the brewers and the moderate party going to do? They both profess to deplore excessive drinking as much as the prohibitionists. Surely there is scope for effort here if the profession be sincere. Will one of the party call a meeting to deal with this vital question, or is all the reform work to be done, as is usual, by the No-license Party? What will the Church of God do in the face of these facts? A 40 per cent, increase •of drunkenness for a year with it's corresponding increase of misery and crime should burn itself into the soul of every, Christian man and woman, and bring every feeling person to say with the the Bishop of Christchurch, "I would rather die than vote for continuance." As Lowell says, "The time is ripe, and rotten ripe, for change." A eriste has arisen. The No-license Party keep^working on. What are the great body of peopla outside their scope, who deplore drunkenness coins; to do is the question?—l am* etc., c 6 CONCERNED. ] THE ANNIVERSARY REGATTA. ~j (To the Editor.) Si r> —We are on the eve of our annual regatta—the yearly carnival for most yachtsmen. Before the entries for the different yacht races are received 1 would most respectfully bring a matter before the Regatta Oommittee. Will! tuck-stern centre-board boats be allowed to compete against keel boats? The small yachts have one race allotted to them, viz., 25ft waterline and under. If boats of the mullet boat type are allowed in this race the keel yachts will labour under a very considerable handicap, as the centre-board craft has the better of the deal on every point. A keel boat fighting a tide feels its influence far more than the shallow cen-tre-board craft running before the wind. The centre-board boat can lift her plate and simply run away from the keel yacht, so that "it is manifestly unfair to expect the latter boat to make anything of a fight with her shallow adversary. The Regatta Committee has most generously allotted two races for mullet boats, so that this one race should be left to the keel yachts alone. If the committee will make it known that this race will he for keel boats only I feel sure a much larger field will cross the line on Regatta Day, as after the exhibition the Waitangi (since disqualified) made of her field last Saturday in the North Shore Club races most owners of keel boats see how useless it is to compete with the mullet boat type. Trusting that the Regatta Committee will consider the point, I am. <-tn- •"•"ilSf-.