(nom ovR OWN coRREStONDEN?.) is not yet four years ago since the London School of Tropical Medicine was opened, and it would be difficult to find any institution which has rendered such work-wide assistance to suffering hu-munity ay large, as has the above Schoo! of Medicine, whose students are now scattered all over the tropical world They now belong to all branches of the pr fession—to the Army, the Navy, Colonial and Foreign services, and to trading and mining corporations, also. to several Government' and foreign societies and Universities. The object of the School is to study those diseases peculiar to tropical countries, and as this would, 1 felt certain, be of special interest to your readers, I was able as a representative of the "North-China Herald" to obtain interview with the directors, who kindly showed me all over the building and took me into the wards and labora: tories. The school itself is affiliated to a branch of the Seamen's Hospital situated at the East India Docks. Though this locality is somewhat inconvenient for the staff and students, no better or more central position could be found as regards the patients, for Lascars, Chinese, and negroes look with great "suspicion and fear on their removal to any distance from the Docks. The native? patients are the class that the students require to enable them to have every facility to watch tropical diseases in" their acute form. Situated as the school is in close proximity to the docks, where ships are constantly arriving from all parts of the world, the hospital is convenient for the mediate admission of patients suffering from parasites which are constantly waging all kinds of tropical diseases, In order to acquaint. the medical war in our blood all unknown to ourselves traced and recorded. These weak practitioner with tropical ailments prior to taking practice in his protozoal germs of disease, which have those regions, for a theoretical know-been ruling man with a rod of iron, causing ledge is' not sufficient, the student an untold amount of sorrow and sick= is trained in scientifically investigating On the shelve tropical diseases, to enable him to observe, are bottles containi record and study scientifically those specimens of the 1 dead us found in the human blood, scourges which he will have to fight. One but to realise that many such disaas sleeping sickness, beri-beri, guinea worm have been introduced into countries with and others too many ty enumerate are in bottles. "In one corner there utes, where before they which the—various known, which a more igh Knowledge of their cause and bred in a species of beet could have _prevented—to see Again there are cages with how valls in which the malarial perative it is for the medi practitioner going to the tropics to have ud other unfriendly insects special training in the dise fain would spend peculiar to those climes. laboratory, which is The school mentions labours owes its origin to the who devote their lives city of the Right Hon. Joseph Chamberlain to Lenefit suffering humanity; but time It is due to his initiative ies and we move on. and to the 'S_ support. given by the Coloni: es my friend, ign Offices that the school was established in connection with ioner is always within' the Seanen's Hospital. Patrick logical, pathological, and Physiological institutions, but it is not sw Manson, M.D., whose name is familiar in with the doctor abroad, especially, when, ere he spent man as is often the ease, he find" himself ox. 3 and ing staff tirely cut off from' civilisation and coi generously. gi i sequently out of reach of many of the gratuitously., whose name has advancements and benefits of modern also been before the public in connection with his recent researches in malaria and science. He may also at any time find that dr ness, usself cut off from the investigation of disease, in a field where animal par: itulogy especially plays an important 04 Further, in England a medical man hina; this gentleman is dean ust always call in a specialist if in doubt bool and has lately returned about the treatment of any disease; but from touring in the tropics where he his been collect in the outlying colonies "he is cut off tion, ing towards the funds of this from all such help and has to depend on his own resources. Unless he How many students have you passed these last three and a half years?" 1 had special training in tropical scases, which are quite unlike those he the great. physician who meets with in England, he has to blunder my cicerone. through as best he can, often buying We have had 265 students in the first his experience at the cost of many three years," he says with a smile of valuable lives; for it is necessary for the pleasure, "and 1am glad to tell you that medical practitioner not only to under-they have always shown a keen' interest stand the symptoms, treatment, and in their work, the average attendance diagnosis of disease, but also to fully Leing 90 per cent.
Two of our students understand its caure and origin. He have been appointed lecturers on Tropical cannot content himself with merely find-Medicine—namely Professor Guiteras at ing parasites in the blood; he must know the University of Havannah, and Staff-the life history of each parasite and its Surgeon Bassett-Smith, R.N., at the effect on the finan blood, and also the val School, Haslar. in 1900 the Crags influence of the climate on the parasite.
ship (£300 a year) tenable for It is only in a large central metro} was awarded to Dr. Low, wh London, where the heart and brain time partly in the Roman Cam-of the very universe are centred, and a, carrying out very important ex-where we have the material and all the periments in nialaria; then he went to latest advances of science manifested, West Indies conducting much needed that thorough scientific investigations can researches in filari and finally inva tuke place. "The general practitioner has ed the cause of sleeping sickness, th not the facilities, even if he had scourge spreading rapidly thro tle time, for microscopical research.
sweeping away whole vill: Fore the student is taught what the time.
Dr. Low and Dr. Cat for se when found, and when have been engaged in the researches of he is sent out to distant portions of the his terrible plague for some time, and globe he can transmit his reports where they believe they have found the organism they will be studied, criticised, and even-germ known as streptococus; but we tually made use of." have not yet as t riy definite gui to th What cases do yon mostly get?" 1 treatment or prevention of this di ask, as we enter one of the wards, which We had three cases over here but like like the rest is well lighted, well ventilated other case on record attacked with and cheery, in fact as I glance down the ness, the patients died. rows of snowy beds and the spotless glass suppose you come into contact with all dis es met with in the tropic: are in one of the worst and dirtiest topped tables I can scarcely believe, we we do; but there are still s 10 our London slums. of them with the names which the pro-"We get a good variety, malaria, berifession here in England has only of late sprue, dysentery, guinea worm, locomo familiar, the so-called filariasis, aswell as enteric, pneumonia, ing sickness, being one of them. Now and all the ordinary forms of disease found s the laboratory," said my guide, in Europe, with the exception of inning the door of a long well-lighted factious cases, and for these at present n in a separate building connected we are unprepared, as we have no isolation wards." with the Hospital. A number of students, In this ward there is a strange mixture both men and women, were busy in j East and West. Here is John Chinaascopieal research. man afflicted with -pinal diseases.
"Tt is here," continues the physician, "Can walkee?" he is asked by Sir "that the life history of the various Patrick Manson.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.