The International Medical Congress at Madrid

Abstract

The fourteenth International Medical Congress is now a thing of the past. About 7000 members attended it, exclusive of the wives and families accompanying them. For some unknown reason the Madrid authorities included in the Congress not only doctors, but dentists, veterinarians, and pharmacists as well. This was too large a number of persons for the authorities to manage, and consequently a good deal of confusion prevailed. The Spaniard is a polite, courteous gentleman, but his business capacity is decidedly wanting. Moreover, the results of that fatal word mañana (to-morrow) were everywhere in evidence, and arrangements which should have been made weeks before were only just concluded when the Congress opened. An account of the proceedings of the neurological section appears on another page. From it it will be seen that the Association had honours conferred on it by the election of three of its members to the position of Honorary Presidents. The difficulty of understanding what was said by the Spaniards, however, led many men to forsake the Congress and explore Madrid, or go on excursions to the Escurial and Toledo. The reports and papers were too numerous for the time allotted to them, and only about a third of the sixty-six communications were read. On another occasion it will be better to limit their number and allow all of them to be read. Only one resolution was passed by the neurological section—a resolution calling on the Press not to report crimes, in order to avoid the contagion of crime. It is doubtful, however, whether the editors of the Press in any country will consent to omit the most sensational part of the contents of their paper; but that too much prominence is given to the life of the criminal in prison and to accounts of his life-history, in some papers, there is no doubt, and the consequence is that weak-minded individuals commit some homicidal or other criminal act.