Editorial.

Southern Cross, Volume 5, Issue 23, 11 September 1897, Page 4

Editorial.

FIRST AiP LECTURES. Xx used to be said—“ A man is either a doctor or a : fool by the time he is forty years of age.” This proverb meant, either that by the time a man had lived so long in this life he had gained sufficient knowledge about himself to play the part of pilot in the matter of his individual health ; or, that the subject of medical knowledge possessed such attractions to the bulk of mankind that by the time they had-reached middle age their gains in this connection were sufficient to enable them to form an intelligent opinion as to how the “ ills that human flesh is heir to ” should be treated. The latter is the probable reason for the saying, in the light of the number of mothers and lay brothers now vending their panaceas —panaceas that are severally supported by the testimony of some individuals who have derived great benefits from them. To give point to their witness, they generally state that the all-virtuous article did its work after medical experts had been consulted in vain. We are never told of the numbers who may have tried the lauded remedies with no advantage whatever. Here probably the jury is only supposed to hear one side of the case. It may be a parallel to the consultation sweepstake business, where the name of the person drawing the winning number is published to the world, while all the unsuccessful ones remain unknown. The time has surely come for the change of the age in our quoted proveib from forty to thirty, or less. All over the country for some years past now medical men have been delivering first aid lectures, and lectures on nursing, of which we cannot speak in language of too high commendation. The members of the medical profession who devote a section of their time to this laudable work are placing society under a debt of gratitude to them. In every centre where these lectures are given an opportunity is afforded to nearly all who wish to become familiar with matters that may be of great advantage to them at any moment. It is quite true that in large measure the same valuable information might be gained from medical works, but these are generally expensive and do net ordinarily come into the hands of the general public. And if they did, with their technical terras, they would afford a very secondary advantage, compared with the living teacher. We have heard men say, who were perfectly familiar with the writings of the late Mr Proctor, that, lucid as his books were, they understood “ The Orbs Around us” twice as well after listening to the living lecturer. There are the best of text books to be had on every branch of knowledge, but the living teacher is as indispensable in the schools of learning as ever. The curriculum in our public schools was singularly barren in this connection for ages, indeed. It has not the importance attached to it now that relatively it should claim. Geography has its place as part of life’s mental furniture, but physiology is transcendantly more important. If a pupil passed through all the seven standards and had a very limited knowledge of the rules of grammar, we should be surprised ; but to find a youth of equal school advant ages almost totally ignorant of the laws of - physical health surprises no one. It may be of some interest to a lad to know about Greenland and the Esquimaux, though not one in a thousand ever has anything to do with either the land or the people ; but it is of supreme importance that the lad should know about his own body, with which be has to do every day for a lifetime. ISTo shipowner would dream of suffering a man ignorant of navigation to take charge of one of his vessels for a voyage across the sea. A man is as valuable as a ship, and to pilot the physical frame through life should be regarded as requiring special knowledge in the one case as in the other.

There is no profession in life, worthy of the name, that does not insist bn special . training- as a q aalificatiori. Life itself is the highest thing, and a knowledge of it and the laws and conditions by which its highest efficiency can be secured should be: one of the chief elements in education. The lectures of which we speak are a very valuable contribution to this subject. It might be thought by some that first aid lectures would have a tendency to render the services of medical men less needed—-that in the knowledge they are disseminating they are not bringing giist to their own mill, but the very opposite. If this were so, it would indicate their unselfishness in the matter. And disinterested we believe them to be. In the very knowledge they give evils will often be prevented that otherwise would eventuate, demanding their services. The more man knows, however, about the physical organism, the more likely will he be to seek the aid of a physician in all cases of a grave kind. “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing ” in some connections, but here it may often be a saving thing. Repeatedly instances have come under our notice of valuable assistance rendered, in cases of accident in particular, . by those who have acquired their knowledge exclusively from first aid lectures. But turning away from cases of fracture, dislocation, and wounds, to quite another class of accidents that not infrequently happen, we mention two cases that we have seen, in illustration of the value of these lectures. The cases were caused by children eating matches. In the first case the parents did not know what to do, and by the time the doctor was in attendance the poison had so far done its work that it took him all his time to pull his little patient out of the jaws of death. In the other case the father had in the meantime been attending first aid lectures, and on finding that his child had eaten the heads of some matches, and that phosphorus poisoning had to be dealt with promptly, a doctor not being immediately available, he sent to the chemist for some sulphate of zinc and administered it, and in ten minutes all danger was past. Here a little knowledge saved life.