MIND AND BODY.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18545, 21 November 1925, Page 18

MIND AND BODY.

; ♦—: — VAGARIES OF THE BRAIN. /new local anaesthetic. (raoic oca owk corrispondiot.) LONDON, October 7. A new class of local anesthetics known as Borocaines, much less toxic and often exerting ten timeß the power'of the original compounds from which they are derived, has been evolved by Mr A. J. Copeland, "Ernest Hart" Memorial Scholar of the British Medical Association, and Mr H. E. F. Norton, of the Cambridge Pharmacology and Chemistry Laboratories. The results of their researches are described in the current issue of the "British Medical Journal." "To determine the factors concerned in surface anaesthesia," they state, "was the main line of the work. Eventually, it appeared that the essential information required was why ' novocain,' the least toxic, of the anesthetics, lost its virtues, when applied to a surface. Having followed up this piece of research, there were evolved compounds from the original hydrochlorides which gave the desired Tesults.'' The properties of the most generally useful, borate-ethocaine, it is stated,' show it to have great, advantages over many anwsthetics. It is stable and freely soluble in cold waiter. The specific gravity of a 5 per cent, solution being high, it is of great use in spinal operations. It is non-irritant, its toxitv is practically negligible, and where infections under tbo skin are required, it. is iust as effective as ethocaine-hydro-chloride and adrenaline. Tho objection has been made to it that it dilates vessels, but this, it is pointed out, can be overcome readily by the use of the latter drug. Homoeopathic Congress. In his presidential address at the annual congress of the British Homoeopathic Association, Dr. B. W. Nankivell said that for years homoeopathy had been cold-shouldered by empiricists of the so-called orthodox school, whilst a really Scientific exposition of disease and its cure lay open to them. How far had they advanced? It was left to Louis Pasteur to establish the germ theory; Joseph Lister developed this along the line of antisepsis, which saved many lives, and this was displaced later on by asepsis. During the last decade the germ theory had been run to death in the school of Sir Almroth Wright, and a yaCcinc was now the cure for most of the unholy * ll ' ments. He did not think they had cut the ground from beneath the feet of liomosopatbs, for homoeopathic teaching, literature, and materia medica had kept paee with the tunes. What was the latest phase in medicine f he asked. They had, more or less, recovered from oral sepsis, and were willing to admit that it was not the. origin of every disease. Touching on the question of vitamines, he asked were not the orthodox led by the nose in this matter and the "willing victims of the analytical chemist and patent food vendor f Ih deficiency diseases, he declared, there was a chance for organotherapy. Homoeopathic medicines we're undoubtedly- a help in these diseases r and the results of the work in the London Homosopathic Hospital proved this. As to the future, Dr. Nankiyell said Hahnemann had bequeathed a rich legacy, and they must prove themselves worthy of it. Before admission to wenibership of the Homoeopathic Association, candidates were required to pass three stages of associateship. Hahnemann proved dozens of medicines on himself. Why should not each associate be Inquired to prove or reprove a drug, and thus steadily increase the knowledge of materia medica and drug symptoms! Human Touch in Medicine. Major lan Hay Beith ("lan Hay"), novelist and playwright, greatly amtised the students at the opening of the winter session of Guy's Hospital 1 Medical School when he delivered a discourse on ''The Human Touch in Professional Life," remarking that by the title he meant character of personality as compared with technical knowledge and ability. There was a general and dangerous tendency in the world to-day* he said, to exploit the "personality stunt" to an absurd degree, to the'] neglect and detriment of real, training; and thorough knowledge. We lived in I an age of advertisement, an age where people we're tending more add. inore to expand their energies, not upon putting quality into , their goods, but of thinking out ingenious and profitable methods of disposing of the goods. He spoke with some feeling in the matter, because he was the possessor of tweity-eig® volumes, in half-morocco, of an obsolete encyclopedia which he was -recently ■ dragooned into buying on the instalment system. It was the human touch which counted, and especially So in the cultivation of the healing art. As muiih healing was produced by suggestion as by physic. A doctor was always playing a v part—backing up the resources of sei-, ence by the arts of the skilled advocate, mixing the powder and the jam in such proportions that the powder escaped I notice, but achieved its purpose. "Once a definite cause has been assigned to a patient'B ailment," s&id Major Beith, '' onee yon have' hung a I label on it marked in plain figures, and I given him something physical to hold on to, he will endure almost anything. Tell him something to keep his imagination from soaring into the regions of unhealthy speculation. It if a good plan' sometimes to be symbolic. You can refer to trouble in his engine-room, or explain that his dynamo requires tnning-up, or his accumulators recharging, or that an overstrained Spring must be relaxed. Something tangible and concrete like that—something he can bitoon. Tell him that he has a Rolls-Royce body, but that there is water in the car-' burettor, or that his petrol pressure is faulty. That will cheer him up tooie than to inform tilnv baldly that his malady is functional and not organic. Ills a Strange thing tile amount of solid comfort a nervous person can derive from having Kis interior compared to that of a moTor-car, especially it you tell him he's a Rolls-Royce." - Capacity of the Brain. Sir Arthur Keith delivered a striking address to students at King's Coilege Hospital. . "Most of us," he said, "who take habitual study have to pay tha price, and the more we give our stomachs to do the higher is the price w® have to pay. For your encouragement I would say this, that I know of no student who would exchange a regulated brain for the healtHv appetite of the mental sluggard. The majority <>t eminent < scholars have no scholarly lineage. They come from Highland glens, Welsh hillsides, English country villages, the first of their kind so far as they can tell who ever devoted their lives to the cause of learning. There must.be throughout ihe length and breadth of our land immense and virgin fields of untapped scholarly talent." "By habitual study,'' Sir Arthur concluded, "you may outrun your physical endurance; you may damage roar bodies if yon neglect to exercise them: but von will certainly not damage your brain. You will never succeed in nsing .your brain up to it* fall capacity. For my own part I use sleep as my barometer; when I begin to find that sleep comes to me vjtu slvgjgard steps, or if there is a tendency for my mind to race, I slack offThere is no greater noftjtenfd t*lk*d than that bfain work toay bring on

brain fever. Our braimi^Miav^SHl and tempers. Like horses of motor-cars they •haw W before they work The start is always the phase to. manage. Often certain when our brains act stfttSHU whether pressure wilt warm to steady pitch or whether it igiHHi to lay science or stiff iiiSilii|7|lßii and take to fiction. The of a debauch of fiction is vellous in its results. The fotlSBI are not like carthorses, do a turn at any hour; horses they hare their times their times on." Snnbaths at Horn*. §|||fl Scientific investigations the gas industry have another stage by the opening jraS central research laboratories uKiH| tion House, 1-5 Grosresor pliegpiSßH recent years, and on successful research work cfiffS9| on by British firms in their «XV| bor&tories, great taken place in the use of gas forMiSfl ing and cooking. Half-a-dopea 'MEBb ago several of these firms as "Radiation Limited," for pose of co-ordinating in a boratory the work of the dmraiH scattered laboratories. This dmw|| ment has now been carried a stA tber with a view to isolating research work from the more ately practical work with which UgH factory laboratories hare to deaLf of the greatest achievements researcher so far has been to overcome the mischief awnflgfaMß incomplete combustion—the of poisonous fumes. "Rjere i$ new laboratory an apparatus tecting carbon monoxide present only to the extent <p£M| two parts psr million. . fWKBi But other discoveries aa hoped for. It is proposed to investigations with a~ Tie# to uSgflH mating the emanations from to the emanations from tl» that any individual amr the pleasures of a sqahstfc,£SflH imitation, in hts Wt JH idle fancy, nor even a reirata > He late Dr. Dallinger ofife | to coal as 'bottled sunshine.' our gas-fire we art agency of coal-gaa sentiiic a reconversion the sun of some of the in the original coal."