The New Zealand Medical Journal is the title of a high class quarterly published by the British Medical Association, New Zealand Branch. The editor is J. Malcolm Mason. The number before us contains several excellent original articles. The most striking characteristic of the journal is that extremely limited space has been given to advertisements – Practical Medicine, July, 1904.

An illiterate young man once got a friend to write a letter for him to his sweetheart. The letter was rather prosaic for a love letter, and he felt that an apology was due to his sweetheart for its lack of tenderness. It was as follows: “Please excuse the mildness of this here letter, as the chap wot’s writin’ it is a married man, an’ he says he can’t abide any soft-soaping – it allus gives him the spazzums.”

At the Christchurch Hospital Board meeting on the 4th May it was decided to defer decision on a motion proposing the closing of the casualty ward at Lyttelton until it was ascertained what amount the shipping companies would be prepared to contribute to its maintenance. A committee was set up to consider the question of the establishment of consumptive sanatoria and to convene a conference of other Hospital Boards in the district to discuss the details. The Board decided to object to the proposal of the Justice Department to repeal the Christchurch Hospital Act of 1887, which vests the land on which the hospital stands in the Board. A proposal that members of registered friendly benefit societies in the hospital district should receive hospital treatment at half usual rates was rejected.