§ MR. M'LARENsaid, he would beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether the statement is correct which has appeared in a medical publication, to the effect that the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury, by a letter dated 10th March, have ordered 20,000 copies of a work entitled Nomenclature of Diseases, to be purchased at the public expense, and distributed gratuitously among the registered medical practitioners of the United Kingdom; whether this work is intended to be adopted or recognized in any way by Her Majesty's Government; and, whether the Colleges of Physicians of Edinburgh and Dublin have been consulted and concur with the London College of Physicians in recommending this nomenclature for adoption throughout the United Kingdom?
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERSir, the medical profession are required to give certificates in reference to diseases for the use of the Legislature. It appears that medical men are not agreed on the nomenclature of disease, so that much doubt and uncertainty arises from the employment of different terms to denote the same disease, and of the same terms to denote different diseases. The London College of Physicians have for many years been compiling a work to remedy this defect. This work 1790 is now completed, and it is true that the Treasury has consented to purchase on certain terms—I need not now specify them—20,000 copies of the work, to be distributed gratuitously among the registered members of the medical profession throughout the United Kingdom. The Government do not adopt or recognize; this work in the sense of making themselves responsible for the correctness of its nomenclature; but they do so far adopt and recognize it that it is their wish, without pretending to say that it is perfect—and, probably, it would be the first book of the kind that was perfect if it was—that it should be employed generally, in order that the terminology used by medical men should not be such as to mislead. With regard to the third Question of the hon. Member, the Government came to this conclusion in consequence of a deputation that waited upon them, headed by Dr. Alderson, President of the Royal College of Physicians, and Sir Thomas Watson. We have had no communication with the medical bodies of Scotland or Ireland on this subject, and I am not aware whether they concur with the London College of Physicians upon it.