POPULAR OFFICER RETIRES

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22983, 1 April 1940, Page 2

POPULAR OFFICER RETIRES

DR. E. BAKER M’LAGLEN After 26 years of service with the Health Department, Dr. E. Baker McLaglen, senior medical officer of schools in • Canterbury and Westland, retired on Saturday. She is one of the best known and most highly esteemed women in the South Island, and she will take with her in her retirement the gratitude, devotion, and affection of thousands of persons with whom she has made contact during her professional life. Dr. Baker McLaglen was born at French Farm, Banks Peninsula, where her father, the late Mr T. S. Baker, conducted a private school, at which many men, who afterwards became eminent both in New Zealand and overseas, received, their early education. Mr Baker was a great, athlete, and before coming to New Zealand he had for three years in succession rowed for Oxford University against Cambridge. His wife was a member of the Dicken family that arrived in Lyttelton in the First Four Ships. Dr. Baker McLaglen, a graduate of Otago University, was the seventh woman to qualify as a doctor in New Zealand. As soon as she qualified she went to England and studied first in London and later at Dublin University. On her return to New Zealand she took up a temporary appointment at the *Seacliff Mental Hospital—the first woman in the Dominion to undertake the care of the mentally afflicted. Another distinction fell to her soon afterwards, when she acted as locum tenens at the Northern Wairoa Hospital—the first woman to be medical officer in charge of a hospital. In 1913 she was appointed to the Heaith Department as school medical officer, and took up her new duties in February, 1914. She was one of the four women pioneer medical officers, who well and truly laid the foundations of a system that has proved of incalculable benefit to the Dominion. Two men doctors were originally on the staff. The work was arduous, and required great tact, patience, and goodwill. , The four women doctors who carfied on the scheme did not have an easy task. They were all young, they had little or no precedent to guide them, as medical inspection of school children was a new idea, and had- been begun only lour years before in England, and then only on a limited scale. Women doctors .at that time had not established themselves in public favour. By many they were looked at askance. Medical inspection of schoolchildren was an unpopular innovation; in many places the medical officers were received with open hostility; their peaceful overtures were met with defiance; travelling was arduous, and the doctors had to undertake long, irksome journeys in all weathers, and in all seasons. But these sturdy pioneers overcame all difficulties, and to them is-due in large measure the efficiency of the scheme to-day. Throughout Canterbury and Westland —and in the earlier days her district included Nelson and Marlborough—Dr. Baker McLaglen broke down barriers of distrust and suspicion, .she gained the admiration and friendship of school teachers and parents, and the affection of two generations of children. Dr. Baker McLaglen has been entertained by many of the organisations with which shd has been connected, and is to be further honoured this week. Next week she will leave for a holiday visit to Australia. ENGAGEMENT NOTICES The engagement is announced of Helen, elder daughter-of Dr. and Mrs E. C. Hayes (Christchurch), and Alan, eldest son of the late Mr G. R. Young, “Wilden,” Moa Flat, and of Mrs Young, Auckland. The; engagement is announced of Mavis Eileen, only daughter of Mr and Mrs J. S. Muschamp (Richmond) ,■ to Leslie Reginald, second son of Mr R. C. W. Pearce (New* Plymouth)’ and i the iate Mrs Pearce fTTagbrigg), Y