John Black

Asian families II: conditions that may be found in the children.

Parmi les enfants de ces familles on etudie la frequence de: hemopathies congenitales, maladies metaboliques a heredite recessive, anemie par carence en fer, rachitisme, infections intestinales, paludisme, kala azar, tuberculose. Influence de certaines pratiques traditionnelles

Loneliness and tiredness resulting from the European Working Time Regulations

After analysing the effect of working hours and fatigue on performance in the workplace, Greig and Snow conclude that the European Working Time Regulations (EWTR) for doctors should not be loosened.1 They did not discuss work intensity or …

Ian Stuart Russell Reynolds

Ian Stuart Russell Reynolds was born into a medical dynasty. His grandfather, Russell Reynolds, himself a third generation doctor, was a pioneer radiologist, and his, father Seymour Reynolds, was dean of the Charing Cross Medical School. Ian went to school at Harrow where he excelled at sport, and played three times at Lord’s …

Thomas John Stuart Merrington Black

Thomas John Stuart Merrington Black (“John”) was born in Leeds, and educated at Ratcliffe College, Leicester, and at Trinity College and the Meath Hospital in Dublin, where he was a prize winning student. He was mobilised for two years of national service in 1952, during which time he was commissioned in the Royal Yorks and Lancs, Essex, and Royal Norfolk Regiments, and he volunteered for service in the Far East. He was involved in peace keeping operations in Korea, Hong Kong, and …

A Boke or Counseill against the Disease Commonly Called the Sweate or the Sweating Sickness

Sweating sickness was a disease of unknown cause and very high mortality that first appeared in England in 1485. John Caiuss book is our main source of knowledge about the disease, outbreaks of which recurred until 1578. John Caius was born in Norwich in 1510. He entered Gonville Hall in Cambridge in 1529 and then moved to Padua to study under Vesalius. He refounded his former college as Gonville and Caius College and became its master. In the first part of his book Caius describes the disease as “not a sweat onely (as it is thought or called) but a fever.” It lasted 24 hours, with pain in the arms, legs, back, and shoulders, followed by a “marvellous heavinesse, and …

Kerala's Demographic Transition: Determinants and Consequences

![][1] K C Zachariah, S Irudaya Rajan Sage Publications, £29.99, pp 367 ISBN 0 8039 9392 7 Rating:![Graphic][2] ![Graphic][3] ![Graphic][4] The achievement of demographic transition—with fertility at replacement level—by the south Indian state of Kerala, despite it being one of the poorest states in the country, has overturned the previous assumption that demographic transition could occur only in wealthy communities. This book covers the subject of Keralas success in four sections:demographic transition, determinants of demographic change, consequences of demographic change, and migration. Two questions arise from Keralas experience: first, can the states policies be applied to other parts of India, and, second, can they be transplanted to other low income communities, notably in sub-Saharan Africa? The first question is answered in the affirmative, although the discussion is not as full as I would have … [1]: /embed/graphic-1.gif [2]: /embed/inline-graphic-1.gif [3]: /embed/inline-graphic-2.gif [4]: /embed/inline-graphic-3.gif

Letter to a daughter: On the imminent death of a child

An undated letter from Jean-Henri Fabre to his daughter on learning of the imminent death of her child My dear Claire, Every day I have been waiting, and hoping that the little invalid had improved. And then I receive this distressing letter. At the extremity of life, you tell me. Let us not lose hope yet; no doctor has ever been infallible. Though not yet giving up hope, I share deeply your pain and sorrow, and knowing you, they must be very great. Such a catastrophe strikes at the very basis of life. Yes, you are undoubtedly right, it …

Two hundred years since Malthus.

Malthus was by training a mathematician and by profession a teacher of political economy, but his work was greatly influenced by his Christian convictions. In the first edition of his Essay , published in 1798, he put forward the hypothesis that population, if unchecked, would increase by geometrical ratio, doubling itself every 25 years, while food supply could increase by only arithmetical ratio. He suggested that population was controlled by “positive checks” such as war, famine, and disease. He campaigned unsuccessfully for the gradual abolition of the old poor laws which, he thought, encouraged the working class to marry young and to have large families. In his second edition he introduced the concept of the “preventive checks” by moral restraint—late marriage and restraint within marriage. The reduction in fertility which Malthus advocated was achieved by the acceptance of birth control, to which he was violently opposed. He was attacked during his lifetime and has been misinterpreted and misunderstood ever since. Thomas Robert Malthus (known as Robert) (fig 1) was born on 14 February 1766 near Dorking, Surrey. He was born with a cleft lip and palate, but this does not seem to have hindered his academic career. In 1785 he entered Jesus College, Cambridge, where he read mathematics, obtaining a first class degree. He was elected fellow of the college in 1797, and four years later took Holy Orders. In 1805 he was appointed professor of history and political economy at the newly founded College of the East India Company, at Haileybury, in Hertfordshire (now Haileybury and Imperial Service College). He held this post until his death in 1834 from “disease of the heart” in Bath (fig 2). He married at the age of 38 and had three children. Fig 1 John Linnells portrait of Malthus in 1833, aged 67. (Reproduced with …

Letter from Eritrea.

No 1 uniform, plus the lambskin gloves. And, or course, ?\ Os Od to my parachute rigger, who in retrospect was grossly under-rewarded. My claim to H M government was for the equivalent of

A Treatise of the Rickets: Being a Disease Common to Children

125, which an eagle eyed accounts section, in its wisdom, reduced to