Currents and Eddies in Practice

When one passed as a student from Arts to Medicine, and back again to Arts-as some of us did-Professor Boas with his Shakespearean recollection of the witches would refer to our "fitful reappearances ." In making one of these, I invite you to come down from the bright circle where you have sojourned at the last few meetings, and have a peep at the pit-even though. in the modern theatre there may be neither pit nor circle. In a weak moment I have been tempted to give you this paper, partly to jot down a few experiences and ideas, however circumscribed,-before they become out of date or merely academic. I would also take the opportunity to pay a humble tribute to the memory of our teachers men of much charm and considerable distinction-who were wont to forgather here and adorn these front seats. You missed them one by one-to me the loss appears as of all together at one fell swoop. Furthermore, in two destructive wars we have lost much of the flower of two generations, and thus handicapped remain to face the opening of a new era. "For, some we lov'd, the loveliest and the best That from his vintage rolling Time has prest, Have drunk their cup a rouid or two before, And one by one crept silently to rest." Neither the turbid waters of society nor the more limpid rivulets of the art and science of medicine move in quite so steady a stream as once we visualised. Strong currents, eddies, even whirlpools have upset the even tenor of the passage. Something of this may appear as we proceed. It has been my privilege to practise in the ambit of three great cities-Belfast, Liverpool, and Manchester. Usually I preferred to observe their communal life from the near and middle distance-a dozen miles out on the green belt. As a cify Liverpool seemed most attractive-its clean, tidy streets, convvnient shopping centre, prewar imports of fruit, social and intellectual snobbery at a proper discount, its cosmopolitan welcome and broad humanity, the Playhouse, the ferries and splendid docks. Manchester, of course, had its love of art and literature and its polite manners-I found its great obstetric hospital St. Mary's the most helpful and.obliging. In trade, Mancunian in foreign parts has been almost synonomous with English. But I do not envy its planners, faced with the gaunt ruins of the first …