PHYSIOLOGICAL LECTURES.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3828, 23 October 1883, Page 4

PHYSIOLOGICAL LECTURES.

In a letter to the Auckland Star condemning some of the lectures delivered by Mrs DF. Potts, " JEsculapius " says : —"liie Btudy of physiology is, without doubt,_ a subject which should engage tho attention of all persons of both sexes; but while systematic instruction upon such a matter would be of benefit to all, these occasional lectures on particular portions of tho subject arc calculated to do no good, but will inevitably cause a great amount of harm. This being so, it ia satisfactory to know that tho audience at this lecture was a scanty one. Tho only thing to be regretted is, that tho.se who attended had not as much good sense as those who were absent, thus preventing tho delivery of the lecture at all. If a man had delivered a lecturo on feminine complaints before a mixed audience in this city, he would have been deservedly execrated for his impudence and immodesty. When a woman commits herself in an equally egregious manner, pho deserves to be treated Avith as little respect and consideration. The case would not have been sobadhadthclecturess taken means to prevent all but husbands and wives from attending, but tho fact was, as it was sure to bo, that a portion of the audience was composed of single young men and women in search of nastiness, and it appears that they were not entirely unsuccessful in their quest. These colonies are rapidly becoming permeated with the influence exerted by a certain class of American books, and they are also being flooded by a number of itinerant quacks giving ' free consultations' in order thu more readily to vend their infamous nostrums. (Mrs Potts, being an M.D., of course is not a quack.) Such books as those Avrittcn by CoAvan and Fowler, ostensibly published for the benefit of the youth of both sexes, mid extensively circulated in New Zealand, are simply American frauds—disgusting frauds, too. Instead of being useful scientific treaties, they are a hash of prurient details, and those Avho arc pore over their pages and gloat over their illustrations have no move idea of engaging in scientific or useful study than tho purchasers of French photographs have of studying the art of photography."