5 JANUARY 1951, Page 8

I warmly support the Lancet's appeal to hospitals with "

alarming " names to get themselves re-christened. As it happens, a few days before I read the Lancet's comments I was passing the Hospital for Incurables at Putney, as I frequently have occasion to do, and reflecting on the effect it must have on a patient to be driven for the first time through the gates past the large sign-board bearing that depressing legend, and to have to date any letters from that sombre address. Human ingenuity—and sympathy—is not unequal to the search for an alternative, Why, by the way, to begin with, should the Lancet not become the Anodyne?