MEDICAL CONGRESS

Hawera Star, Volume XLIX, 6 September 1929, Page 9

MEDICAL CONGRESS

BURDEN OF MATERNITY. METHODS OF TREATMENT. ANTE-NATAL CARE. i (United Press ABaocmumi -By f.-.-u ( ,, i Received 2.5 p.m. to-day. SYDNEY, Sept. 0. Dame Janet Campbell, director oi maternal and infant welfare in the British Ministry of Health, addressee the Medical Congress (obstetrics section). She appealed to the proiessiou to fudeavour to lighten the burden ot maternity. She said that she envied the records of Scandinavia and Holland in this respect, but ua.s unable to obtain comparable records of other countries. Britain was trying to make ante-natal work more general, as on this must depend a reduction of maternal mortality. It was hoped in England that an insurance scheme would be adopted under which women would obtain proper attention during confinement. Dr. Henry Jellett said that there was a tendency in modern times to adopt new methods and neglect men * and women, they were eternally looking tor new advances that 1 must be built on knowledge and neglecting the foundation on which that knowledge must be based. They made medical practitioners and midwifes, but failed to provide them with sufficient knowledge of midwifery. The present system of caring for prospective mothers was essentially wrong, and by the adoption of a different system the present rate of maternal mortality could roughly be halved. Medical men, should concern themselves more with ( ante-natal care, diagnosis and postnatal care, leaving the other work to midwives. Dr. E. S. Morris pointed out, that the problem of the untrained nurse did rno-t affect New South Wales-, for out of 3246 midwifery nurse-s registered, only 150'. were not hospital trained.

XERYOUS DISORDERS. In the course of a, discussion on nervous disorders and their relations to claims for compensation for -accident, Dr. MacDonald, of Dunedin, expresslyd the opinion that functional nervous disorders co-idd not be caused directly by trauma -o-r ov emotion. French wartime treatment in neurology centred not | far behind tire front line. Functional nervous disorder, said Dr. MacDonald, i,y not the result of injury ; there must 'he something super-added; somebbing that will reach the patient when in a condition of suggestibility. Insurance companies would be wise and savemoney if they would submit all such cases to neurological examination. Dr. Minogue. of Sydney, ’Submitted remarkable figures- relating to nervous disorder cases which were subjects for compensation claims. In twenty-three of such there were only four complete recoveries, recovery being rapid after compensation claims were -settled for lump sums ; in seventeen cases in which, no claim for compensation were involved there were- twelve complete recoveries. There was a distinct tendency among unskilled workers of -low intelligence to regard su-oh illnesses as- a haven of refuge and despite remedial Measures, many clung tenaciously- to their symptoms. “We may suspect some of o-ur patients a-s humbugs and plausiblerogues.” he -said, “but how can rye prove it? If a man swears he has pain can we swear he has not-? Our humanitarian laws have c-apitallised the infirmities of the neurotic.”