Behaviour in vitro of some new antistaphylococcal antibiotics.

Abstract

To meet the spiral effect of these stress conditions many seek escape in the noise and excitement of modern social activities such as football pools, non-stop television, and boogy-woogy, while many others prefer to shelter under the umbrella of sedatives or stimulants. Wonderful and ever-changing as the products of the pharmacologist's laboratory are, by themselves they can but alleviate and postpone eventual breakdown, mental or physical. To help such people successfully to ride the storm and reach a safe anchorage the doctors' equipment must include human understanding based on sound moral principles and sym pathy born of true charity, qualities of mind which remain unchanged throughout the centuries. Conclusion You who have so patiently listened to me may conclude that many of my views are reactionary. They are certainly the views of someone who reacts to what he sees to-day, the views of someone, in the words of a remarkable essay in The Times Literary Supplement earlier this year, who believes in perhaps an old-fashioned society, inherited without much self-questioning, but nevertheless a society that cohered and had a dynamic and still offered oppor tunities to the young and the talented and the enterprising ; not a society harried, hag-ridden by regulations and finan cially penalized. . Medicine is in the middle of all this. It is losing its dynamic. Somehow or other this Association must bend its efforts towards not only preserv ing but also enlarging the area of freedom and dignity in medicine that still exists within the framework of the National Health Service. If we cannot succeed in this, then I fear for the future of medicine and especially of General Practice. The decline in standards which I and others see is harmful to the public deluded into believing that the National Health Service is the best possible service because it is State-sponsored and is labelled free. We need men of conviction who do not lack the courage to express their opinions clearly, unpopular though they may be ; we need a new dynamic in medicine. Let us see that it comes from within the Association. In the first quarter of this year there were increases in almost all categories of nursing staff in both mental and mental deficiency hospitals, amounting to 270 in the first and 175 in the second. These figures were given by Mr. R. H. Turton, Minister of Health, when he spoke recently to the Association of Hospital Matrons. The most wel come feature of all, said the Minister, was the increase in the numbers of both male and female student-nurses. In mental hospitals there were 143 more male student-nurses, an increase of 10%, and 109 more female student-nurses, an increase of over 5%. In mental deficiency hospitals the increase in male student-nurses was 16 (6%) and of female