NUFFIELD FOUNDATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26903, 15 October 1948, Page 5

NUFFIELD FOUNDATION

REVIEW OF YEAR’S WORK

GRANTS FOR HEALTH RESEARCH N.Z.P.A.—Copyright.

Rec. 11 p.m. LONDON, Oct. 14. The Nuffield 'Foundation, whose principal objects are the advancement of health, social well-being, and care of the aged, in its third annual report states that Captain Oliver Bird, who has been a sufferer from osteoarthritis for 30 years, has given £450,000 for the promotion of research into the prevention and cure of rheumatism.

The report said that to March 31, foundation grants amounted to £495,350, bringing the total allocation since 1943 to nearly £2,136,000.

The foundation had granted £50,000 to enable a number of scientists working in collaboration at Oxford University to utilise all recent developments in equipment and research into the study of blood-forming organs in the hope that blood may hold a clue to many diseases. The report hoped that a follow-up survey on the health of all children born in Britain during one week in 1946 may be ready next year. The survey cost £4OOO, during which experts checked on 14,000 children with relation of the children’s illnesses to their environment, and about their general health and development. The foundation had allowed £IB,OOO over five years for the distinguished optical physicist at Bristol University, Dr C. R. Burch, to. develop an entirely new microscope which uses mirrors instead of lenses. A reflecting microscope has unique advantages over the normal microscope in light focus. The foundation had extended the dominion medical travelling fellowship scheme for the next seven years, which means that New Zealand will nominate two fellows annually, who will come to British medical centres and undergo one year’s specialist study for teaching research work in their own country.