In each hospital they required one administrator, one registrar, and one quartermaster who would train annually, and a larger number of physicians and surgeons than was actually necessary would be attached to each staff in order to give the scheme the utmost elasticity. These officers would have no responsibility whatever in the organisation of these hospitals ; the War Office would undertake their provision and equipment, and they were already beginning to see i daylight in this matter. All

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... y asked of the medical profession was that they should join the Territorial Force to come out in time of invasion. They wanted 23 general hospitals of 520 beds each with 12,000 beds in all and with a capability for expansion throughout the country. Peri. patetic schools of instruction would be established in the various area. Sir Alfred Keogh concluded his speech by explaining the necessity of the so called red tape" " for which the Army Medical Service was blamed. He had tried for six years to reduce the number of papers and documents in use in the service but he had been quite unable to do so. Those papers were of the utmost importance, for they contained the record of every man admitted to a field hospital and often formed the basis of pension claims later. They further enabled medical officers to keep the commanding officers of patients under their charge informed of their state and were necessary for the information of patients' relatives at home. He felt that when this was understood they would hear less complaints about the compilation of these records. He thanked the President and Censors of the Royal College of Physicians for permitting that important meeting to take place. Sir Alfred Keogh was followed with great attention and his remarks were punctuated by applause, which was also loud when he resumed his seat. Mr. HALDANE then rose. He began his remarks by welcoming the sight of many old friends who had helped him nearly ten years ago in the task of organisation of the higher education in London. They were met again to speak of the value of science and organisation in another aspect. He complimented Sir Alfred Keogh on his admirable description of the advance made by science in dealing with medical organisation. Bitter experience had brought them there to make an earnest appeal to that audience. They were endeavouring to work out a perfectly definite conception. The army was a vast machine with many wheels worn out or missing and not one-half of the work it ought to be doing could be done. In war time nothing could be done efficiently which had not been prepared for during peace, and the preparations must be carried out with a view to war alone. He asked, What was an army ? 7 It was a collection of formed bodies subdivided into smaller formed bodies which were effective in accordance with the training which had been put into their organisation; the training vastly increased their potency. So, also, in each great division of army organisation, working together with a common purpose and training for a common purpose held that division together. They were concerned to prevent wastage in war and the scientific element in army medical organisation had that aim in view by reducing sickness. The functions must be carefully ascertained and distributed and the basis of that appeal was an attempt to carry through a scientific organisation at, the War Office. A trained expeditionary force was required to act at a distance to hold together our Empire, to preserve peace and good government within it, and to guard its frontiers. Their conception was a second-line citizen army for home defence organised exactly on the pattern of the regular expeditionary force; it must be a real and not a scattered force, with a perfect and complete mechanism. Experience had taught them that in the regular army they required an organisation not less perfect than Sir Alfred Keogh had described. Great strides had been made in the last few years and the work of Sir Alfred Keogh had brought about great strides in the last few months. All the State could do was to provide the organisation, find the material, and appeal to the people's patriotism. This special appeal was to men of science to help in the highest type of scientific organisation, and they asked the heads of the medical profession to help in that task. He had known a good deal of that profession and he knew that there was no body in this country more keen or interested in national defence. It was a great task and would not be accomplished in a day or a year or several years. They were trying to build up an army for home defence such as Switzerland possessed. The Wdr Office had in days gone by held too much aloof from the nation, from which the army had also been cut off. They wanted to root the army in the nation, and as part of the process they had come to that audience with their plans and wanted their cooperation. Mr. Haldane concluded his speech amidst applause, which had also greeted many of his remarks. Mr. HENRY MORRIS, President of the Royal College of Surgeons, then moved :- That this meeting having heard with great interest the proposal for the formation of a Territorial Medical Service, sympathises with the objects in view, approves of the proposal, and pledges itself to support the scheme. In an eloquent speech strongly supporting this motion he especially pointed out that medical men were asked to render service in the way of their professional work, other men in a manner distinct from their ordinary avocations. He further aptly quoted from a speech of Edmund Burke, who said, "Politically we are all a sort of children who require to be soothed as well as managed." He was very glad that the War Office had taken that line with the medical profession. He made a warm appeal to the patriotism of his audience, concluding with the words of Shakespeare, "Nought shall make us rue, if England to itself do rest but true." Dr. P. H. PYE-SMITH seconded the motion which was carried by acclamation. Sir FREDERICK TREVES then moved That the President of the Royal College of Physicians and the President of the Royal College of Surgeons be joiutlv requested to form a small committee to consider and inform the Director General of the Army Medical Service how the proposals for a Territorial Medical Service can best be carried into effect. He said that the scheme tended to fan the very small flame of patriotism in this country in time of peace and that the medical profession had a great influence on public opinion. The scheme would bring the Army Medical Service more closely into touch with the civil profession. who are contesting the vacancy in the representation of the faculty occasioned by the resignation of Dr. Lauriston E. Shaw :-Dear Sir or Madam,-I wish to indicate shortly the reforms which I think are urgent in the present relations of the University to medical education in London and which, if elected, I would forward to the best of my ability. 1. The need for a more accessible degree.-The regulations of the University are at present framed rather with a view to the exclusion of students than to the improvement of medical education in London. I consider that every student in a London Medical School ought to be a student of the University and that with proper modifications in the regulations and, what is more essential, a corresponding modification in the attitude of the University towards the medical schools, the large majority of London medical students should be able to obtain their degree at the University. 2. Increased time for clinical subjects. -At the present time most of the preliminary and early medical studies are determined without any regard to the uses to which the student will be required to put the knowledge gained in the early years of the curriculum. The ordinary student who is to be a general practitioner ought not to be required to spend time on the acquisition of knowledge which he will never use. The necessary opportunities for those students who desire to pursue more deeply the study of the medical sciences and who may at a later period be expected to forward our knowledge of theee subjects by research have been afforded by the establishment of the B.Sc. Honours School. As regards the ordinary student, the whole of his studies should have a distinct bearing on, and lead up to, the knowledge of the human body and its control in disease. With a curriculum on these lines it would be possible for the large majority of students to pass the Intermediate M B. examination at the end of the second winter session, as has been recommended by the faculty, thus allowing the minimum of two and half years (a period all too short) fur the study of medicine, surgery, obstetrics, and pathology. A change in this direction would be of benefit, not only to the medical, but also to the scientific. training of the London student, and would therefore tend to an actual raising of the standard of the degree.