An attempt has been made to classify the many different physical (gymnastic
and athletic) activities, and to give a clear definition of speed, endurance, strength
and skill exercises.
Only a few of the outstanding physiological effects
n
these four groups could
be discussed, together with some practical hints as to the value of the different
groups for the development of our organism.
Finally it should be kept in mind that all such classifications are justified only
in so far as they may be helpful in recognising the underlying "law and order" of
"real life." It is—if at all—only in very rare cases that in practice we shall meet
the pure speed, strength, endurance and skill exercise, and the physiological effect
of a given gymnastic or athletic activity will always depend upon the various contri-
butions made by one or the other or—as in mcst cases—by all of the four great
physiological groups.
Concluding, however, we may say this: It is the living individual who in and by
himself has to transform the overwhelming variety of "functional possibilities" into
a harmonious unit. The greatest supporting factor in doing so will always be what
we may call "joie de vivre," and it is significant that the one common and uniting
psychological effect of all gymnastic and athletic activities, and of all games as
well, is their joyful and recreational character, which should never be abandoned,
and which will help us to carry on even more efficiently the "business of to-day."
It may be permissible at the present time to draw attention to the serious and
cheerful wisdom of the old Latin saying:
"Pro patria est, dum ludere videmur."
POLICEMAN SERVES AS NERVOUS STORK.
With Help of 2-Way Radio He Successfully "Officiates" at Birth of a Boy
AS DOCTOR RACES TO AID.
Police Physician Gives Advice Over Air to Officer Called in the Emergency.
(Special to The New York Times.)
EAST IRVINGTON, N.Y., Jan. 8.—Patrolman George Butler of the Greenburgh
Police Department successfully delivered a baby born to a woman on the relief rolls
here early yesterday morning, while he received instructions over the police two-way
radio system from a physician speeding to the scene in a police automobile.
"He did a remarkable job," said Dr. Cassius L. De Victoria of Hartsdale, Green-
burgh police surgeon. Mrs. Eleanor Moller, mother of the child, thought so too, and
named the eight-pound boy John Joseph Butler Moller.
Mrs. Frank Calluci, a neighbour, telephoned Officer Charles Stein on desk duty
at Greenburgh Police Headquarters at 12.05 a.m. that Mrs. Moller was having a baby
in a house on Taxter Road, where several needy families live. Mrs. Moller had made
arrangements to go to Grasslands Hospital as a charity patient, but all available
ambulances were out on other calls at the time.
Mrs. Calluci Pleads for Speed.
"You'll have to do something quick," Mrs. Calluci yelled into the phone. Stein
sent Butler in Car 19 to Taxter Road to do what he could for Mrs. Moller. Patrol-
man John Foley was dispatched in Car 17 to notify Dr. De Victoria at his home,
tour miles from the Moller house. Butler found Mrs. Moller in the kitchen, attended
by Mrs. Calluci. He called Stein on the short-wave radio in his car and asked for
instructions. Stein got Foley on the two-way system and asked him to have Dr. De
Victoria give Butler advice.
Butler pulled his car tip close to the kitchen door and turned his loud-speaker on
full. Dr. De Victoria, approaching at sixty miles an hour, told Butler what to do.
Occasionally, Bu' ler reversed the radio and asked the physician specific questions.
Butler said after that he was very nervous, because pigs, chickens, dogs and other
animals in a barnyard near by had awakened and were raising a racket, and be-
cause some women neighbours crowded around him to give advice.
Doctor Arrives After Birth.
Dr. De Victoria arrived about 12.17, just after the baby was born.
"I'm mighty glad to see you, Doc.," Butler said. "The baby's arrived. I hope
he's all right."
Dr. De Victoria found mother and child in good condition, and complimented the
policeman. Butler returned to headquarters and wrote a report of the incident in
seventeen lines. He could not resist noting, however: "Baby born Jan. 7, 1937, at
12.15 a.m., and named John Joseph Butler Moller." Butler has been twice married
and has a son. He said he had an "awful" time at headquarters to-day because
everybody was "kidding" him about being a radio widwife.
"I believe that you had a multiple birth ?"
Mother of twins: "No, just a double bed."
The Editor has recently received a copy of the first issue of "Trephine,"
the magazine of the Queensland Medical Students' Association. The Medical Faculty in Queensland was founded in 1936 and it is indeed excellent to see the Medical Students' Association already enthusiastic enough to issue a maga- zine. This in itself contrasts with the dull apathy so frequently , found amongst students of to-day.
The magazine is well produced and the articles interesting, but one is struck even more by the fact that so many problems are raised that are of vital importance to medical students. Both the Editorial and the introductory article by the President of the Association make constant references to the difficulties and failings of the medical course, and of the students moulded by it. Another article is devoted to an analysis of the medical course curriculum, and there is a letter from three senior Meds. criticising the methods of conducting some of the exams. These criticisms and analyses are, generally speaking, made not in a captious spirit, but with considerable logic and force.
The magazine is particularly interesting where it deals with the growing drive toward collective control in the community which is probably the most important problem for the medical student to face just as it is the most important social problem for all students. Social developments of various kinds are going on at a terrific pace in our community. It is useless to regard our form of democracy as a static order to which we should pay no attention during the present international struggle, although this ostrich view is deliberately foisted upon us by apparently responsible people. As the Queensland Editor says : "Collective medicine in some form or other is not only inevitable, but necessary, to handle such problems as infant mortality, ante-natal care, venereal disease and tuberculosis as community risks." "But," he adds, "there is a danger that bureaucratic control may become so complete that the cure of the acknowledged ills of medical practice may well be worse than the disease, and one in which medical personality will be largely eliminated." "Unhappily, stu- dents are not being taught to think for themselves and this is true not only of extra-curricular subjects, but of medical subjects as well."
The President of the Association is even more vigorous. "The graduate of
to-morrow . . . . will be facing a changing world in which nothing has changed
as greatly as the reverence formerly paid to Medicine . . . . As sure as God
made little apples, reform is going to be forced upon the medical profession in this country . . . . And if future reforms are laic in origin they will in their zeal include not only the monetary status of the medical graduate—a subject on which a lay opinion may be quite valid—but also his medical and scientific work, on which only qualified medical men can judge . . . . Reform is much more effective—and pleasant—if it comes from within."
It is true that it is becoming trite to talk idly and rather hypocritically about the need for social and economic reform after this war. It is not so much that people are becoming aware of the gross abuses, inequalities, squalor and hope- lessness of the health conditions of great masses of the population which any sincerely thoughtful person would have been aware of long ago, war or no war.
The truth is rather, that social change is already on the way. The response of ordered authority tends to be to guide and control these changes in such a way as to disturb least the present order of things, but the necessity for guidance and control is felt ever more pressingly.
Both practitioners and medical students tend to feel that they have a vested interest in the present order of things, from a general economic point of view as property owners, and also as preserving their individualistic rights to map out their own course of action to satisfy both economic aims and scientific and professional standards. Yielding ground a little, before the inevitable onslaught of collective control, they tend to support that authority which appears to oppose least the fundamental conditions of this apparently happy slate of affairs.
The trap here, of course, is that however necessary the medical profession is to the community, yet as a political power it is negligible compared with much more powerful and often more unscrupulous and parasitic forces which deter- mine the course of events. The kind of control supported by medical men for general economic reasons may well destroy that which is of great value in the profession.
The medical profession is entitled to adequate reward and proper condi- tions of service, including that free play between doctor and patient of which so much is made by those who claim the sacred right to make as much money as possible by the most vigorouti competitive means. Without these conditions tremendous harm may easily be done to a profession which includes many fine servants of the community. Conversely the profession must be ready and willing to co-operate in a steady expansion of health services to cover every class in the community. Although jealous to preserve the finer aspects of the present prac- tice of medicine it must' be prepared to formulate and support vigorously plans for expansion which inevitably involve collective control. By adopting such a policy it is to be hoped that such inadequate schemes as the recently proposed National Health Insurance scheme may be avoided and that schemes evolved will not produce a repetition of the unedifying 11/- wrangle.
But, to repeat, collective medicine in some form is inevitable. Schemes for
medical reform must dovetail into general schemes for reforming the life of the
community, such as clearance of slums and raising of the basic wage and must
not involve invidious attacks on the profession. But, in spite of an immediate
loss of income and freedom of action in securing a decent collective health
scheme, present altruism may well prove to be long-term, enlightened self-
interest and the confidence and respect of the people for a profession with
tremendous potentials for service be maintained.
