BRITISH MEDICAL ASSOCIATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12522, 15 March 1904, Page 5

BRITISH MEDICAL ASSOCIATION.

w+ww»t\m ii ii ■ "■"•■'■ NEW ZEALAND BRANCH.

' ■ MEETING IN WELLINGTON. [BY TBi,T.GaAFH.— ruESS association.] . : • Wbllixotoj» ( Monday. " The annual meeting of the New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association opened this evening, and was attended by medical men from all parts of the colony. The president, Dr. "Collins, of Wellington, delivered a long address, in which he touched on several matters of public interest. He congratulated the Government and the Health Department upon the prompt and effective manner in which they had resisted the invasion of the colony by plague and smallpox, and commended the erection of the sanatorium at Cambridge for the treatment of consumptives. The maintenance of a high standard of public health was urged, and lessons in elementary health to school children were recommended as a duty, particularly as such instruction would lead to the acquirement of knowledge which would: assist in the arrest or the prevention of many diseases which are now rife. In regard to the birthrate, Dr. Collins said there seems to be no doubt that if an effort is not made to divert the inclinations of the people from unwholesome channels, the sacrednesa of the marriage/ tie will be jeopardised, and the very existence of the race threatened. Itis a matter which requires the earnest consideration of both men and women. So soon as people begin to consider their own selfish needs to the exclusion of the wellbeing of the community, it follows that in the end the race mast surely suffer an interference with the functions that ai 6 natural to.: the bod), and must produce deterioration and disease—such dread diseases as melancholia and other form* of . mental disease and cancer.