The Daily News SATURDAY, JANUARY 8, 1926. THE LEAGUE AND HEALTH.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 January 1927, Page 12

The Daily News SATURDAY, JANUARY 8, 1926. THE LEAGUE AND HEALTH.

The League of Nations, whose primary function is to promote the peace of the world, is equally concerned with the general welfare of humanity. Among its numerous activities is the preservation of health, and especially the prevention of diseases- Its Health Committee, which has just completed its eighth session, continues to merit the confidence which during the past few years has been so widely reposed in it —a confidence which has not been lightly won. Happily this important committee, ever since its inception, has included among its members men of science and administrators of the highest repute, and has been able to exercise a strict discrimination in the choice of workers. In consequence of this very fitting policy there has been an absence of all inclination to lend its authority to doubtful enterprises, thereby being able to rely on the support of physicians and health officers throughout the world, whose influence is greatest, and who are regarded as leading authorities in their several spheres of action. Such an advantage is self-evi-dent, and it accounts for the committee’s undoubted success, as well as the reputation it has acquired for broadmindedness. One convincing testimony to the comprehensive character of the committee’s operations is that every country has been afforded the opportunity of contributing its Special knowledge, while every country has been enabled to share the knowledge possessed by its neighbours. For instance, the committee, last year, succeeded in establishing very elose relations with the health administrations of the Far East, and a detailed study has been made of the work in progress in Japan. Relations were also developed with the health administration of British India, the Philippines, New Zealand, Australia, Siam, French Indo-China, the Dutch Indies, and the Soviet Republic. Thereby it became possible to study certain diseases and certain methods of prevention on a world scale. It has also become possible to concert measures of protection so widespread as to greatly enhance the chances of success, besides which there occurred many instances of a desire to exchange personnel, so as to facilitate the study of problems of treatment and prevention under circumstances different from those ordinarily encountered. A notable example of the special investigations set on foot by the committee is the appointment of a commission to inquire into the distribution and prevention of sleeping sickness in Equatorial Africa—a body that is composed of Belgian, British, French, German and Portuguese workers interested in this malady. If a

general attack is made on the tsetse fly or methods of controlling the carriers of infection are put into practice, much benefit should ensue to the inhabitants of those regions which suffer from the pest and bring into production millions of acres of rich food producing lands. In the case of cancer, the commission appointed by the League’s Health Committee has definitely established the truth that cancer shows differences of mortality in different countries, and that these differences are not to be accounted for, as was at one time supposed, by differences in methods of diagnosis or of registration. With regard to epidemology—a science that is as yet in its infancy—an opinion prevails in ’some authoritative quarters that epidemics, like plagues of locusts, have their established starting places, and that long before they begin to sweep over the world, signs of increased activity are manifested in these breeding grounds, so that it is considered possible, if the breeding places are kept under strict observation, to issue warnings and thereby enable health authorities everywhere to take precautions, and, perhaps, make successful assaults on the common enemy. It may be of interest to all concerned in health matters—and who is not?—to learn that the Singapore Bureau of Epidemologieal Intelligence receives reports from over one hundred ports in Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and the East Coast of Africa, and issues weekly bulletins of news about epidemics, these being broadcasted by a number of stations in the Far East- As intelligence travels faster to-day than infection, all health officers should be able to take measures to prevent the spread of epidemics. These few examples clearly indicate the nature and the value of the work carried out by the Health Committee of the League of Nations. It can be said with absolute truth that even the smallest country in the world should not neglect to co-operate in a work that is of the greatest import to humanity in every portion of the globe.