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INSURANCE FOR EDUCATION

THE Educational Facilities Association has put outa scheme aiming to ensure the education of boys andgirls in the event of their father’s death, and allprofessional men, doctors among them, will find muchthat is attractive in the idea. Briefly, the schemeprovides that for a small premium per term, in the Ievent of the insured parant dying, the fees of a pupil ’,at the school attended shall be met until the child is ’ready to leave. It is proposed that the premium shallbe paid to the headmaster with the ordinary term fees, ’,,the first payment being made when the pupil enters ’’

the school. Preparatory, secondary, and public ’,schools are included in the range of the scheme. Aschool, acting on behalf of a group of parents, willmake the necessary arrangements, through the ’,Educational Facilities Association, with an insurancecompany. At preparatory schools the benefits willbe available for pupils up to the age of 14 ; atpublic and secondary schools up to the age of 18.Broadly speaking, the insurance can be effected fora premium of iJ1 on every iJ4ü paid in school fees.It will be possible, in addition, to make specialarrangements to insure a child’s continuous educationfrom preparatory to public school, and from publicschool to university. Those who are familiar with theorganisation of Epsom College, and the splendid workthat is done by the College in securing educationalfacilities for the children of dead or disabled medicalmen, where no provision has been possible for thepurpose, will be in full sympathy with the idea. Solong as the doctor’s income is maintained he is ableto support his children at school, but with the cessationof professional earnings in a large number of casesthere is no income available to complete the upbringingof children in the manner which had been rightlyplanned for them by thoughtful parents. Any methodswhich will help to ensure for such children continuouseducation should appeal to all our readers. But whilein accordance with this scheme they are paying a

premium upon the school fees of children, they shouldsupport by subscriptions Epsom College, remem-

bering that there will still be many children of medicalmen in whose case there will be difficulty in providingthe premiums necessary to take advantage of thescheme of the Education Facilities Association.

A VARIOLOUS STORY.

AT a time when it is difficult to induce the populationof this country to be vaccinated, it is refreshing to hearof the enthusiasm shown by the natives of a village inPalestine for even more drastic measures. In an enter-taining article which we publish on page 212, Dr.J. Macqueen tells how he investigated a case of small-pox in a village in Palestine and took elaborate pre-cautions for its isolation. He satisfied himself thatthere was no other case in the village, but it was notlong before he learnt to his astonishment that thelocal medicine-man had taken the opportunity toengage in a little prophylactic work and had alreadyinoculated 300 children with variolous material fromthis case. The practice of variolation is extremelyancient, but it was not apparently until Lady Mary IWortley Montagu had her son variolated in Constanti- ’,nople in 1717 and described the procedure in her z’

correspondence that it became popular in Englandand America. The method adopted in Turkey wasto remove the contents of a vesicle (not pustule)and introduce it by means of abrasion, incision, orpuncture. The material obtained from an inoculatedcase was preferred. The usual Chinese procedure was toplug the nostril with cotton which had been saturatedwith a mixture of water and pustular crustaceousmatter taken from the eruption of a small-pox patient.Less commonly, fresh crust was powdered and blowninto the nostrils through a bamboo pipe. The methodin vogue in Palestine is to puncture the skin with athorn through variolous matter spread on the surface.These various practices could only have remained

popular because their effects were milder than truesmall-pox, and the death-rate cannot have been morethan 1 per cent. or it would hardly have been toleratedin England. Why variola inoculata should be milderthan variola vera does not seem altogether clear.Although, admittedly, virus introduced under theskin may find itself in an unfavourable medium forpropagation, it might have been supposed from therecent work of Dr. Mervyn Gordon that inoculationthrough the mucous membrane of the nose wouldproduce severe infection. In the Palestine experimentsit seems probable that not all the inoculated personswere treated with virulent material, although theactivities of the local doctor in Dr. Macqueen’s storyhad sufficiently sensational results. Of the 300 childreninoculated death occurred in 8-5 per cent. of thosewhich developed an eruption, and in 3-3 per cent.of the whole number inoculated. But it is not to be

supposed that this traditional practitioner rousedagainst himself the fury of an antivariolation society.On the contrary, he seems to have gained nothing butkudos for his work, and certainly did not lose reputeby the month’s imprisonment which was its sequel.As Dr. Macqueen concludes, this Dawaimeh epidemicwill have served some useful purpose if it acts as areminder that a disease, variola inoculata. was onceextremely popular; that Jenner superseded it with abetter-vaccination; and of the problem why small-pox is such a severe infection when naturally acquired,so much less severe when inoculated, and so wonder-fully harmless when passed through the calf. (It willbe recalled that Dr. Gordon 1 thinks it probable thatthe vaccinia virus contains approximately equalquantities of the elements which produce cow-poxand small-pox-an opinion which supports thoseof Jenner.) As for Dr. Macqueen’s narrative, it ispossible to read between the lines that a difficultand threatening situation was met by him with skill,tact, and firmness. Even with such enthusiasticvariolophils it was no mean achievement to get themto parade for a third vaccination.

THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR THE DEAF.

THE National Bureau for Promoting the GeneralWelfare of the Deaf was founded some 15 years agoby Mr. Leo Bonn, and for a number of years accom-plished valuable work. Even during the war periodwhen, like those of many similar organisations, itsactivities were half paralysed by the loss of expertassistance, its main object was kept steadily before thepublic. The need for a national recognition of the posi-tion of the deaf has long been urged by the supportersof the Bureau, and two years ago a movement for itsreconstitution was started. This movement waspublicly inaugurated at a conference in March, 1924,under the presidency of Lord Charnwood, when theoutlines of the reconstituted body were consideredand an executive committee was appointed to preparedraft articles of association. At this meeting LordCharnwood was unanimously elected president of thereformed organisation ; a representative group of vice-presidents accepted office, and an executive committeewas selected to carry on industrial and social welfarework, to watch finance, to discharge generally thepurposes of the Institute, and to cooperate witha strong medical committee. Mr. A. J. Story, head-master of the North Staffordshire School for theBlind and Deaf, accepted the position of secretary, andthose who know the work which he has done on behalfof the deaf will recognise the good fortune of thenew organisation, now entitled the National Institutefor the Deaf, in obtaining his services.The report of the first year’s working of the

Institute has been circulated recently and shows thata great deal of preliminary spade-work has beenaccomplished, and in so short a space of time littlemore could be expected. The executive committeehas"been studying closely the industrial position of

1 THE LANCET, 1925, ii., 826.