PLAGUE AND DISEASE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3864, 3 April 1928, Page 7

PLAGUE AND DISEASE.

HEALTH OF INDIA’S MILLIONS.

. AUCKLAND. I.farch 27. the huge problems facing those responsible for the health of India’s millions greatly impressed Dr T. J. Hughes, district medical officer of health, who returned to Auckland by tho Marama from bydney to-day, after attending a conference of medical officers in India organised by the League of Nations. Largo religious gatherings attended by anything from 200.000 to 6,000,000 natives said Dr Hughes, were the greatest dangers that had to be contended with from the health point of view. These gatherings wore breeding grounds for epidemics such as cholera, and when the natives returned to their homes they very often carried the disease with them, spreading it with disastrous results “Take Bengal province alone,” said Dr Hughes “ Here wo have a population of 47.000,000 living in 84,748 villages, and the stupendous task of dealing with cholera epidemics can be appreciated.” Opportunities werj afforded do egates of gaining a first-hemd knowledge of every phase of public health work carried out in India. Th© measures taken for the control work and tho institutes which manufactured various vetcizies and calf lymph for inoculation and vaccination purposes were of particular interest “The Haffkine Institute, in which the Plague Commission solved the question of tho transmission of plague through the rat and rat flea, and where the antiplaguo vaccine and anti-venomous serum against snake bites were made, were of great interest to us,” proceeded Dr Hughes. “To date the institute. has turned out 30,000,000 doses of anti-plague vaccine.”

Dr Hughes indicated that religious beliefs and customs restricted somewhat the activities of the health officers, of whom there were hundreds in India. These customs in a large measure seemed responsible for India’s large infantile mortality rate. The health system, so far as the doctors were concerned, was in the transition stage, Indian doctors now occupying posts formerly held by white men These Indian doctors were very efficient, many of them taking their degrees in the medical schools of England Or in their own Indian colleges Dr Hughes . had the interesting experience of meeting many medical men—lndian and European—with whom ho became acquainted in his student day s at Edinburgh-_ Dealing with India’s hospitals, Dr Hughes said some of them, more especially the medical and surgical ophthalmic and gynaecological were such that any country might well feel proud to possess them. As the official representative of the New Zealand Health Department, Dr Hughes has prepared an extensive report on the impressions gained during his tour, and this will be forwarded to the Directorgeneral of Health.