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the grants from the Board of Education to local authorities inrespect of money spent on medical inspection and treatment.The meeting will consider the advisability or otherwise ofsuggesting the formation of a committee of the Society ofMedical Officers of Health to inquire into the matter. It is

particularly desired that the meeting should be representa-tive of all medical practitioners engaged practically in thework, irrespective of their being members of the Society of:Medical Officers of Health. If those intending to be presentwould kindly communicate with me arrangements for themeeting would be facilitated.

I am, Sir, yours faithfully, - - -

C. W. HUTT, M.D.,Senior School Doctor.

7, Gloucester-place, Brighton, Sept. 22nd, 1913.

DETECTION OF SMALL AMOUNTS OFGLUCOSE IN URINE.

To the Editor of THE LANCET.

SIR,-It has been my work to give two processes for

estimating sugar in urine, and especially for small quantitiesof sugar found in the wheat kernels and elsewhere. Onemethod has been by oxidising a cubic centimetre of urineby means of permanganate and taking the temperature,the other by slight caramelisation and noting the colour,or by estimating it volumetrically. These tests are knownand have been published. Allow me, therefore, to re-

mark on the concluding advice given by Mr. Sydney W.Cole in THE LANCET of to-day, p. 860, with respectto the tolerance of carbohydrates. In my temperaturemethod I found that healthy normal urine had the power ofbreaking up a certain quantity of both sugar and alcohol,-even at ordinary temperatures, and that in such tests where1 or less per cent. of alcohol or sugar in urine was usedI could not get the full temperature or the szcna ofurine and alcohol and sugar, a part amounting to a quarteror half would be lost. Hence the "tolerance of carbo-

hydrates" to be sought by a routine method, as advised,might well include not only how much sugar in small

quantity might be there, but also what power the urine hadof breaking up sugar added to the urine-whether due tothe enzyme action of that trace of albumin, ever present inurine with the ferrocyanide and acetic test, or due to theother constituents of urine, or again to temperature.

I am, Sir, yours faithfully,Sept. 20th, 1913. J. BARKER SMITH, L.R.C.P. Lond.

A STANDARD MEAL FOR RADIOGRAPHICEXAMINATIONS.

To the Editor of THE LANCET.

SIR,—In the Section of Electrotherapeutics, at the annualmeeting of the British Medical Association recently held atBrighton, the following resolution was passed :-That this meeting expresses the opinion that it is advisable that one

definite type of standard meal for radiographic examination should beadopted by general consent, and asks the Electrotherapeutic Section ofthe Royal Society of Medicine to appoint a committee to obtain evidencewith a view of suggesting this official standard meal.

This resolution was formally handed to me as President ofthe section referred to, and I have undertaken to give thismatter my personal care and see that it is acted upon. Itherefore invite all radiologists and others who are interestedin this subject, both here and abroad, to write to me

stating, as concisely as possible, the composition, quantity,and consistency of the bismuth or barium meal they use as a,general rule, and the reasons why they prefer such a meal.The sooner this evidence is obtained the better it will be

for all concerned, and it will facilitate matters very consider-ably if the bulk of it is ready to lay before the committeesoon after it is appointed, probably during the month ofOctober. As it is intended to give this question an inter--national character, it is hoped that evidence will be given ’,by radiologists in Europe, America, and elsewhere. Providedthe communications are sent promptly they will be in time tobe fully considered along with the rest. Communicationsshould be sent to me at 66, Harley-street, London, W. ’

I am, Sir, yours faithfully,

Sept. 24th, 1913.

REGINALD MORTON,President, Section of Electrotherapeutics,

Royal Society of Medicine.

GREAT BRITAIN AND OLYMPIC GAMES.To the Editor of THE LANCET.

SIR,-The opening subscription list published by the OlympicGames Fund scarcely shows symptoms of that enthusiasmwhich will be necessary if the total of the fund is to becarried to £100,000 or any such sum. We who sympathise withthe promoters of the scheme if, as we are inclined to con-jecture, they are conscious that it has not as yet exhibitedsigns of having "caught on " with the British public, or wonapproval from many whose support would have been of con-siderable assistance to it, have our sympathy prompted bythe knowledge that those responsible for the scheme are

earnestly, if too readily, convinced of the benefit likely toaccrue to their country from its adoption. The aim they seekto promote appears to be a general improvement in the

physical training and physical health of their countrymenin addition to the winning of prizes at the OlympicGames " promised at Berlin in 1916, and as a result of awidespread effort to qualify athletes for that competition.The fact that the Olympic Games Fund may perhaps notdevelop at once into a permanent institution upon the scaledesired for it by its well-wishers cannot strike medical menas an indication of the decay of physical and moral energyas exhibited hitherto in this country, or as anything in thenature of a national misfortune. From a medical point ofview all medical men are in sympathy with reasonableindulgence in sport.

Athletic and field sports alike are traceable to a commonorigin-the preservation of the human species. The necessityfor providing the necessaries of life by securing food taught mento pursue wild birds and beasts successfully and to snare fishwith skill, and the preservation of life was again the objectaimed at in cultivating the body generally and in trainingit for personal combat. The long-distance runner andthe famous swimmer or jumper of to-day would, no

doubt, have been utilised by our distant ancestors as

a messenger useful in times of war. Modern sport, as

medical men are prepared to commend it, is rightly and wiselyindulged in as a recreation after toil, and as a means tomaintain and increase bodily vigour. It is by some followedas a substitute for any other occupation of a more seriouscharacter to the exclusion of all other pursuits, and as suchwe do not commend it or admire its devotees. Bv others itis followed as a profession, and the ranks of these pro.fessionals are recruited by fine specimens of our race, manyof them with a mental endowment which balances their

physical skill. Nevertheless, nobody wishes to see the ranksof professional game-players unduly enlarged, while thecloak of patriotism must not be used to conceal the creationof a class who, without being professional athletes, none theless make athletics the affair of their lives. WhenEnglishmen devoted themselves con amore to field sportswe developed qualities of pluck, resource, self-control,and good fellowship, so that we were a nation which,whatever its faults, was one of conspicuously healthy bodiedand healthy minded men. But many thoughtful people donot approve of turning these sports into a business. Mr.Nowell Smith, the head-master of Sherborne, reminded us,in one of his letters to the Times, that we are accus-

tomed to hear schoolmasters blamed for the undueathleticism of our public schools. We are now appa-rently asked for the good of the nation at large toextend that athleticism, to systematise and to standardiseit, not merely in order that a larger number of youngathletes may meet in friendly rivalry at home, but in orderthat they may, by years of training, of elimination, and ofselection, outdistance all competitors in a European meeting,and the pursuit of this ultimate end of international com-petition appears to be essential to the scheme under dis-cussion. But it is the excess of competition in athleticsand the proclaiming of success in such competition as theprincipal aim for which athletic prowess is to be cultivatedwhich many of us condemn.-I am, Sir, yours faithfully,

Sept. 16th, 1913. E. A. A.

* * Apparently the nation is committed to the inter-national contest. We quote Polonius with apologies-‘° Beware of entrance to a quarrel, but, being in, bear’tthat th’ opposed may beware of thee." The first maxim

having been disregarded, an attempt is now being made,wisely or unwisely, to follow the second.-ED. L.