PLEURO-PNEUMONIA AND DR. THOMPSON.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XX, Issue 2103, 16 April 1864, Page 5

PLEURO-PNEUMONIA AND DR. THOMPSON.

To the Editor of the Daily Southern Cross. Siu, —ln your pi hit of the 14th instant appeared a papei, pm potting to be the substance of a lectine deliveied by Mr. \V. Thompson, M LI C.S , befoie the Medical Society of Victona. The puipose of that lecttue was to piove the identity of contagious pleutopneumoma and measles. Not many of your leaders haveiisen uf> much wlsei fiotn a peuisal, and lew have been able to wade tlnough the two columns and * half of yom Daily -Southern Ckoss and say, we have lead it all and undeistand it. Methmks theie have been dictionaries consulted to veiy little pnipose, and the spelling nloue must hive been awful. They aie tremendous fellow*, these Victoiians. Last week only you gave an extinct fiom the pamphlet of Mr, G. Mitchell, which was lather stiffi'h leading; but aa nothing computed to (he pomposity of Mr Thompson. This Mr. G. Mitchell must be a prodigious man in his way, also; with one paragraph about hbitn of the Wood — and good physiology it is — he has quite ptu/led the learned editor of the Otago Daily Times, who candidly admits that he is not clear if he uiii'cistands the eiudtte passage himself. Really, Mr. Mitchell, this crowns yom lepufcation. Editors aie supposed to beiuvi«ible gnomes, who enn see and hear and undeistand everything ; ate heie, there, and every wheie, }et have ho entity, no place of residence, no one ever saw them. They me dainty aiiels, living on paper, and wasting gallons of ink and yet Mr. Mitchell botheis one of them. Victouous Victoiian 1 j ft is to be wished, however, that these erudite gentlemen would descend from theirolymptisof Crtetk words and technical terms, and talk like oulinarv mortals. If editois cuinot undeistand them, who "the deuce can 1 Mr. Thompson's lectiue maybe voiy learned, and paittculaily adapted for a piofeiaiunal 01 medical room, bub to the mass of leaders it is neailv lncompieheu sible. I myself believed that I was piefcty well skilled iv Greek and Latin, but Mr. Thompson's lectme pulled me up, and at one or two words I fauly foumleied, and cannot find the meaning to this hoiu. It is about the most knotty and stony piece of rending my eyes ever encoimteied. Many of the choken of woids ate not to be found in all the dictionaries. Now amongst all this thunder and hailstone woid*, what ram of common sense descends on the stock ownets. Only a few drops, lias all this display of grandiloquent learning ended m nothing? Next neighboui to it. He piesctibes no lemedy, not any pieveiitive. He doubts whether vaccination is efficacious, and yet admits that the pathological piinoiplc, if not piecibely Jennenan, may uevei theless be fundamentally the same, the virus repeating itself by catalysis. To make daikness visible, catalysis has nothing to do with a cat, and something else, but means a lesolution which happens before thedisolution which constitutes death. Like the Otago editor, I canuot say that the meaning is clear to me after all. Confound the fellows, what the deuce do people care by what name, haii splitting theorists may call the disease, when it kills their cattle. Mr. Thompson canuot conjine by uibeolo, any more than Mr. G. Mitchell by pleino-pneuinonia contaniosa. The malady baffles them all. He says it svill die out like ineawls. Then it is lemaikably long lived, having been lavaging ! Biitain for 22 yeais, and the banks of the Lower Elbe ami Danube much longer. If any of youi readers would take the tiouble of translating this lecture into plain English,— but it is n.,t necessjuy, as the gem would bo spoiled, and it is a great euiiosity — a linns wtifioial is— as it stands. There is a stiange contiast between Mr. Thompson's lecture and the Auckland proclamation. The Victorian «howB too inuoh leai mng on the subject of this pleuro-puomnonia— the New ZeaUndev, noue svhatever. — Youis, ke. y QUESTOR.