THE MEDICAL CONGRESS

Southland Times, Issue 16843, 20 September 1911, Page 7

THE MEDICAL CONGRESS

A MOST INTERESTING ADDRESS. [By Telegraph. —Press Association.—Copyright.] SYDNEY, Sept. 19. In opening: the Congress. Lord Denman referred to doctors as public servants, and eulogised their gratuitous work and self-sacrifice in the cause of humanity. Dr Poekley, in his address, declared that the increasing scope and complexities of medicine were such that a lengthened course of study was necessary. Three to five years was altogether insufficient. Excepting some portions of the brain and the spinal cord, no parts of the body were sacred from the surgeon's knife. Pseudo scientific writers made exaggerated claims for the usefulness of radio activity. Practically all therapeutic effects of radium could be got by Rontgen rays. Radium emanations did not cure real cancer. Early removal by the surgeon was the only optional treatment. Referring to the “White Australia" ideal he declared that whites would never permanently and continuously occupy the tropics, and they must either allow the country to remain unproductive or use coloured labour. The public failed to realise the value of the gratuitous work done by the hospitals. In Sydney's two largest Institutions free operations, valued at £-100,000 per annum, were performed. Altogether the gratuitous work done in Sydney amounted to close on a million pounds sterling a year. He dealt exhaustively with man’s acquired immunity from certain diseases through constant contact. He instanced the native races’ susceptibility to consumption compared with the susceptibility of whites, who had experienced the disease for many generations. Alcohol was more stringent titan tuberculosis; the susceptible were weeded out. and the propagation of the race left, in a large measure, to those on whom the craving had no hold. Thus alcohol would not cause racial degeneration. Regarding eugenics, without limited knowledge we were not justified in taking the responsibility—it was better to lex nature manage in iter own way. FRIENDLY SOCIETIES. SYDNEY. Sept. 19. The Congress Committee appointed at last Congress presented a report on the effects of the resolution then adopted, that no doctor should pass for admission Into a Friendly Society lodge or club at contract rates of remuneration any person whose weekly income exceeded £t. It was stated that New South Wales was the only State that had taken definite steps to enforce it. The outcome had been that wage limit classes had been introduced into agreements between doctors itnd their lodges. Already five hundred practitioners had benefited. Victoria was taking initial steps to enforce the resolution, but Western Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, and South Australia had done nothing. The committee strongly urged the profession to make a determined stand to enforce wage limit classes throughout