FIGHTING EPIDEMICS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 194, 17 August 1922, Page 4

FIGHTING EPIDEMICS.

Wp wore informed the other clay thai. Uie British Medical Research Council was forming a team of scientists to attack the problem of inlluenza and I endeavour to isolate the organism and discover a means of prevention and cure. This w to be a part of a great world effort to light epidemics 'and safeguard the public health. In the I'nited States there are at present about 10,000 per- ■ sons engaged in public heakh work under Federal, State, or municipal auspices, and there ale about an equal number in (!rent Britain giving all their time to the work of preventive medicine. Nearly a- many more arc to be found in the service of nongovernmental agencies of all sorts. In many tropical countries, such «s India, .lava, and the Philippines, 'both preventive and curative medicine is administere<l 'by corps of trained Government officials. The League of Nations is taking a prominent, part in this work, and besides taking ! steps to stop tho went ward march of ! typhus and cholera from Russia, has . recently hel<l a technical conference on I the. standardisation of sera and serological tests with a view of standardising the. units of serum at present in use for diphtheria and other diseases. It has also organised a service of cpi<l<'mioi logical intelligence which is intended: to ensure rapid and effective interchange of information on epidemic disease.-. Medical colleges, laboratories, and hospitals arc being established in .lapan, China, the Philippines, IndoChina, the .StraiU Settlements. Siain, ■India, Syria, Turkey. Mexico, and other parts to combat tuberculosis, malaria, typhus, yellow fever, the hook-worm and similar scourges. In Asia Minor exhaustive research work is being concluded into tile cause and cure if t r:l- ---, chnmn. and it is stated that now i methods of treatment have been discovered and it is hoped in time that tho origin of the disease may be found and some method devised for its prevention. Already much has been done in the war agniimt disease. Typhoid fever has been I enormously reduced, the fear of diph- , tliorin has been largely allayed, cholera and plague have practically disappeared from the leading nations, and malaria and hook-worm disease are giving ground. Rut much remains to be done. Influenza, which during the last great i epidemic destroyed more liv?s than the I whole war, is only imperfectly underj stood; cancer remains a problem both !as regards its cause and its cure, and i ] many other diseases still baffle th? j doctors. By organising work on an 1 international scale still greater advances I should l>e made both an regards prevenI tion and cure.