MEDICAL CONGRESS

Hawera Star, Volume XLIX, 5 September 1929, Page 5

MEDICAL CONGRESS

USE OF GAS IN WAR. PROTECTION OF CIVILIANS. INSTRUCTION IN PRECAUTIONS. (United Press Association--By Electric Telegraph Copyright.) (Australian Press Association.) Received ft.4o a.m. to-day. SYDNEY, [Sept. 5. Addressing the naval and military section of the medical congress, Doctor F. A. Maguire, declaring that gas was to be the most potent weapon of future wars, suggested that the authorities should educate citizens in the various kinds of gas likely to be used. It was possible to give every citizen a. respirator and tell him how to use it. It might ho possible, too, to provide a reserve store of respirators. i General Barber, Director General of -Medical Services, announced that the question of protection of the civil I population was now under consideration. The Defence Department had already made provision for the troops in Australia. He pointed out that in event of war and the enemy spraying a certain district with gas, it would be most desirable to evacuate as many people as possible.

WORK OF VARIOUS SECTIONS. SYDNEY, Sept. 4. Seven hundred medical men and women who- are taking .part in the Australasian medical congress are holding meetings in various rooms at the University Medical School. At some there are only lonely little groups of three or four specialists, while at others 50 to 60 doctors listen to the reading of papers on the ills of humanity. One discussion related to the use of anaethetics. Dr. Robert Fowler, of Melbourne. described the work of the Australian Inland Missions and of its living doctor who several times had flown 300 miles before breakfast, operated on patients and then returned to the base. Other interesting papers concerned diseases of the eye, heart and limbs, the medical aspect of gas in warfare, the immunisation of children from diphtheria, and the treatment of stammering. An animated discussion occurred on the subject of septic ulcer, while still another section took up the question of obseteries and gynaecology. Dr. Cook, of Darwin, read an absorbing paper on the health of whites in the Northern Territory, and there was a paper on animism and determinism read by Dr. .T. Young, Invercargill. The surgery section was addressed by Professor Gordon Bell, of Dunedin.