Dr. Grenfell's Parish. By Norman Duncan. (Hodder and Stoughton. 6s.)—Some
of our readers may remember Mr. Duncan's "Dr. Luke of the Labrador." In the preface to this book he protests that "Dr. Luke" was not meant for Dr. Grenfell. We give such publicity as we can to the denial ; if some "unhappy misunderstanding has arisen on the point," one can only say that, seeing how similar were the circumstances, nothing could be more likely to happen. Dr. Grenfell devotes himself and his medical skill to the help of the coast population of Newfoundland and Labrador ; what that means no one knows who is not practically acquainted with the country. Still, Mr. Duncan gives us some idea of it. While the sea is open Dr. Grenfell goes about in his hospital-ship the Strathcona,' visiting patients along hundreds of miles of coast and transporting such as need it for treatment in the hospitals,—there are three of these available for the fisher population. This work thus done by sea is no child's play. It is a stormy coast, and the navigation is about as difficult and dangerous as any in the world. But the work in winter is even harder. There are certain points of call, to which the sick are brought, and the Doctor visits them at stated times, making, for the purpose, a journey of six hundred miles out and as many back. He travels, of course, with dogs, fine animals, but not without the defect of a hunger that, in winter at least, knows no bounds or scruples. Here is a gruesome story. A child of four fell in the snow, and the pack at once set upon him. He was rescued, but he had forty-two wounds on his body, and for many nights the dogs
howled under the window of his bedroom. Some of the dogs Were not guilty ; those that were guilty were hanged. This is said to be the custom. Here is the abbreviated log of a winter journey. A summons comes to Dr. Grenfell from a man dying of hemorrhage at Conch, sixty miles away. On the way he is called to a lad who has broken his thigh. He sets the bone, has a few hours' rest, and starts. Then he meets the mail, and finds a letter with another summons. That he has to neglect. Before he gets to Conch he has two more calls on the way, and attends to them. Then he is intercepted by a fisherman, who brings a child with a club-foot. (The child was taken to hospital and cured.) At last he reaches his objective, stays for five days, setting the original patient on the road to recovery. Then the Doctor goes to another settlement, and after doing a great deal of work, returns to Conch. Seventeen men had come offering to drag the sledge themselves if dogs could not be found. He works away there and starts for home, taking up on the way an old woman who was bound for the hospital to have a foot amputated. He had not been at home more than two days when a summons to a settlement a hundred and twenty miles away came, and was promptly obeyed.
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