RESEARCH IN MEDICINE

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22437, 25 June 1938, Page 14

RESEARCH IN MEDICINE

PROGRESS OF WORK NOT ANNOUNCED QUESTION OF FINANCIAL AID DWINDLING OF GOVERNMENT GRANTS Six weeks after the newly-formed Medical Research Council held its initial meeting a report on the proceedings and an outline of the proposed work was made by the Minister for Health (the Hon. P. Fraser). No official announcement has been made since on the activities of the council, although it has, in terms of its functions, recommended researches and investigations to be undertaken. These include research into nutrition, diseases of the thyroid, tuberculosis, and hydatid disease. When the council first met on December 8 last —no report was issued till January 22—the Minister for Health expressed the hope that it would become a permanent national institution. Should it be found that legislative provision was required the Government would assist the council to the utmost. He would also do his best on the financial side. The extent of the finance which the Government proposes to make available has, in common with the actual work proposed to be undertaken, not been announced by the Minister. Probable State Aid For the carrying out of medical research on substantial and progressive lines a sum of £6OOO annually, rising to £ 10,000 after a five-year period during which salary increments would be made to attract research workers of distinction, would probably be involved. Dr. C. E. Hercus, who is a member of the council, has suggested that this sum does not seem unduly large or disproportionate, “considering the special New Zealand problems which confront us and in the light of the fact that New Zealand is spending more than £40,000 per annum on her industrial and agricultural research problems.” The desirability of correlation in medical research between the different parts of the Empire was discussed at the 1924 Imperial Conference. In 1927 Professor A. Murray Drennan, now professor of pathology at Edinburgh University, urged the New Zealand Board of Health to place research in the Dominion on a more satisfactory footing bv encouraging and facilitating it. “The chief requirement in research is the proper individual, who, when found, should be adequately paid and left free,” he told the Board of Health. “Money alone will not produce results, but money spent on the proper individuals is a sound investment for the Dominion.” Experience in Past Professor Murray Drennan’s recommendations did not bear fruit, and grants for medical research fell almost to vanishing point in later years. Research, however, has been in progress in various departments of the National Medical School at Dunedin for many years, being financed from the scanty university research endowments, private benefactions, the British Empire Cancer Campaign, the Hydatid Research Fund, and also from occasional Government grants.

In 1923-24 the grants in aid for medical research totalled £125, this being expended on goitre research, and £420 was given the following year. In 1925-26 grants reached their second highest sum, £2482 being expended on cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, and poliomyelitis. The grant for these researches was increased to £2597 in the following year and then stopped. Research grants totalled £ 2328 in 1928-29 and £1694 in the following year, and then dwindled steeply to £lO in 1932-33, £lB3 in 1933-34, £8 in 1934-35, and £4 in 1935-36. The sum of £ 106 was given for work on goitre and hydatids two years ago, and the last grant in 1937-38 was for £l9 for goitre research. In the last 14 years the total grants in aid amounted to £13,239. It is claimed that the Health Department has “long recognised the importance of medical research and has attempted to elucidate the causes of certain diseases (e.g., goitre, dental caries, undulant fever), which constitute major public health problems in New Zealand, as well as other diseases (e.g., tuberculosis) which can properly be regarded as fitting subjects for local inquiry.” A National Institute The unsatisfactory position of the financing of medical research was further exposed, it is claimed, by the last outbreak of infantile paralysis. To institute research of any value into a problem so difficult as poliomyelitis at short notice was obviously impossible, said Dr. Hercus, in his capacity as Dean of the Medical School. The staffing and equipment should be ready before the outbreak occurred if satisfactory work was to be done. Apart from that epidemic, there were sufficient problems of New Zealand interest calling for investigation to justify the establishment of a research institute within the Medical School, which appeared to be its natural locale, he stated in a report at that time. A National Health and Medical Research Council was formed in Australia a year before the New Zealand Medical Research Council was brought into existence, and a Government grant of £20.000 annually has been made. In New Zealand organised research into the causes of the diseases of man has had to give precedence to problems confronting agriculture and industry- When giving the George Adlington Syme oration to the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons 18 months ago. Dr. Hercus added: “The position is still more anomalous when the large sums expended on hosnital construction are considered. There is a lack of balance in the whole situation.”

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