AMERICA IS BASEBALL MAD, SAYS DR P S. FOSTER.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18642, 20 December 1928, Page 3

AMERICA IS BASEBALL MAD, SAYS DR P S. FOSTER.

PAPERS HAVE NOTHING ELSE IN WAY OF SPORT. According to Dr P. Stanley Foster, America is base-ball-mad. The papers have nothing else in the way of sport. During the two months of his stay there, while the All Blacks were playing in South Africa, he could not obtain one bit of news of their matches. It was not until he got to New York, and get a copy of the “Times,” that he found any mention of them. Interesting views and news of things abroad were given by Dr P. Stanley Foster in an interview last evening. Dr Foster, who with Mrs Foster, has been on an extended tour, returned to Christchurch yesterday morning, having been absent from New Zealand since May. , INFLUENCE OF ROTARY. Dr Foster was New Zealand delegate to the International Rotary Conference at Minneapolis in the United States. He describes the scenes at the conference as amazing, thousands of persons assembling there from ail parts of the world. In the hotel where the doctor stayed over forty languages were represented. It is his opinion that the Rotary ideal of goodwill and service is having considerable effect. . Though, like everything, small in its beginnings, this meeting of peoples will soon be an important international factor; and Rotarian influence is already said to have prevented several wars among the South American States. The Rotary movement is claiming the allegiance of the best in every town, and their ideal of a better relation between employer and employed is bearing fruit in industry. especially as regards profit-sharing enterprise. AMERICAN ATHLETICS. Dr Foster, while in Boston, visited Dr Harvey Cushing, the famous brain specialist, who is considered a likely successful candidate for the Nobel science award. Dr Cushing took him to the final try-out for the selection of American representatives at the Olympic Games. The trials were held on two days at the Stadium of Harvard University, where athletes from all the States competed. On the Saturday when Dr Foster was present, twenty men

jumped 6ft and better, and Lloyd Hahn put a world’s record for the halfmile. Dr Foster also saw the final of the American Open Championship Golf Tournament at Chicago, when Farrell, scoring stroke for stroke over three rounds in the final with B.obby Jones, won by one stroke on the last green in a Sunday play-off. BASE-BALL MAD. Big base-ball games arc played every day, even Sunday. They are almost entirely professional, and through constant practice players have reached such a standard of efficiency that a catch is never missed. The accuracy of the fielding is remarkable. “It would fill a cricketer with envy,” said Dr Foster. “If I could get the fellows round at my club to throw into the wickets the way these base-ballers do, there would be some trouble in the other camps.” New Zealand is almost unknown overseas, says Dr Foster, but people who have been here never forget it. They are full of enthusiasm for New Zealand. and admiration for New Zealanders as a race. The variety of scenery and sport are more than enough to draw tourists from any part of the world when they know them. Experienced deer-stalkers say that there is no such sport elsewhere. MEDICAL RESEARCH. Dr Foster's principal interest abroad was to study the latest developments in medicine and surgery. In America he visited the famous Mayo Clinic at Rochester, where the two Mayo brothers have gathered round them a body of men whose names are famous throughout the -world. A further clinic devoted solely to the diagnosis of cases, has just been completed at an expense of several million dollars. The organisation of the clinic is its most wonderful feature, each patient passing through a series of specialised departments, from which all the diagnoses are assembled and placed before a single surgeon, who makes the final decision on the case. The best of American surgeons equal the best in the world, thinks Dr Foster, but the average standard of ability is probably lower than in England or France. The Canadians “have very fine research institutes at Montreal and Toronto. Their doctors are very active and alert, and seem more virile in research than the Americans. Dr Banting's discovery of the insulin treatment for diabetes is typical of their work. The Americans are greatly aided by the fact that munificent foundations give them abundance of finance. In England and France hospitals are run on the chari t\ r system, and the newspapers abound with new appeals for funds. They are consequently hampered, sometimes underhospitalled, and usually understaffed.

BEAUTIFUL ENGLAND. Cardiff, where Dr Foster attended the annual conference of the B.M.A. as Canterbury delegate, he expected to find a dirty place. On the contrary, the centre of the city is a square of beautiful buildings standing on land donated by the Marquis of Bute. The Marquis gave a royal entertainment to the visitors in the form of a garden party, for which 6000 invitations were issued. The grounds, however, are so extensive that the guests did not seem an unusual crowd. The entertainment included the dispensing of champagne to all. The ancient walls of the castle are in the centre of the city, next the main hotel and the railway station, the grounds extending in depth for miles. England has had a wonderful summer and the whole country looked surprisingly beautiful. In the north Dr Foster saw crops which Canterbury would find it difficult to equal. AIR TRAVEL. Dr Foster flew from London to Paris by the Imperial Airways service, and found it excellent. Flights are run with the accuracy of a first-class express train. Transit is perfectly smooth, with the exception of an occasional slight drop—far smoother than the average ocean liner in good weather. He left London on the day of the very destructive gale there, and did not even know there was any unusual disturbance. The huge three-motored ’planes carry eighteen passengers and their luggage alj over the Continent. The

extent of air travel may be judged from the fact that the head of the chocolate firm of Tobler, whom the doctor met at a Rotarian dinner in Switzerland, has used no other form of transport for ten years.