MEDICAL CONGRESS.

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14838, 2 December 1913, Page 8

MEDICAL CONGRESS.

PROGRAMME OUTLINED,

Tlie tenth session of the Australasian Medical Congress will be held in Auckland from February 9th to 14th. About 300 delegates are expected to assemble from all parts of Australia and Now Zealand. The programme for tho Congress will bo divided into 11 sections, and in addition to the work of these sections, there will bo a number of joint discussions and several meetings of tho whole body of delegates. A preliminary draft has been made of the sectional work, but the programme is still incomplete (says the "Now Zealand Herald"). Over 100 papers havo already been promised. Th© majority of them are only of technical interest, but several of tho subjects are of general concern. A combined meeting of the sections of medicine, public health, and bacteriology and tropical medicine will discuss: "The diagnosis of smallpox and the best means of.preventing its spread, in tho light of experience gained in tho recent epidemics in New South Wales and New Zealand." Th© subject will be introduced with papers by Dr. Paton, of Sydnoy, and Dr. Monk,- of Auckland. , Several subjects have been suggested for discussion by the section of pathology, bacteriology, and tropical medicine. They include: Vaccination and smallpox, diphtheria and diphtheria carriers, the problem of germ-carriers— human, animal, insect—in relation to the occurrence and eradication of epidemic infectious disease; tho occurrence and prevention of tropical diseases in Australasia, and the role played by insect-carriers; and the nature, origin, and occurrence in Australasia of such diseases as pellagra.

HEALTH IN THE SCHOOLS. For the first time in the history of the section of public health and State medicine a special sub-section of medical school inspection and hygiene has been created. Dr. C. S. Willis, of Sydney, has agreed to take charge of this subsection, and is organising a programme, for which he has prepared a paper on "School Closure," and Dr. Ronton Roth. Sydney, one on "School Postures and Spinal Curvatures." A combined meeting of tho sub-section will bo held with the section of psychological medicine and the section of diseases of children to receive and discuss a report of the committee appointed by the Congress of 1911 on "Tho Caro of Feeble-minded," and "Tho Problem of the Feeble-minded Child." Interesting discussions aro being arranged for tho section of naval and military medicine and surgery., among the subjects to be reviewed being the causes that render so many recruits .unfit for military training" in Australasia. An original contribution by Professor Paul Ehrlich, of Munich, will be among tho papers of outstanding importance. He is famous throughout the world as ithe author of the wonderful combination of drugs named salvarsan. His paper will deal with a class of contagious disease, upon which a great deal of information has been collected by a special committeo. ENTERTAINING THE VISITORS. Tho full meetings of the Congress will be held in the V.M.C.A. Hall, and tho various sections will meet in tho Technical College and the. Training College. The mornings will be occupied by tho work of the Congress, and a programme has now been completed for the entertainment of tho delegates during th© afternoons and evenings. On tho afternoon of February 7th, a reception will b© given by the president (Dr. A. C. Pnrchas) and Mrs Purchas, at their residence, Carlton Gore road. Special sermons, dealing with the art of healing, will be "delivered in the principal churches of the city on Sunday evening. The ceremonial opening of the Congress will be preceded by bush-ess meetings on the. morning of February 9th, and a reception in the Exhibition grounds that afternoon; Three hundred delegates will assemble in tho Town Hall in the evening, and they will then be welcomed to the city by the Mayor (Mr C. J. Parr). The Congress-will be declared open by his Excellency the Governor (the Earl of Liverpool), and Dr Purchas will deliver his presidential address.

A public lecture will be given on tho evening of February llth, by Dr. J. W. Barrett, of Melbourne, on town-plan-ning and the American system of playgrounds in cities, subjects of which he has made a special study.