VENEREAL CASES.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 16417, 10 January 1919, Page 5

VENEREAL CASES.

NO CAUSE FOR ALARM. Exception has been taken in certain quarters in the "VVairarapa to the sending of soldiers, who are suttering from a venereal disease, to the military camp at Featherston for treatment, and in order that the public may' obtain some information on the subject a ."New Zealand Times" reporter interviewed the medical authorities at Defence Headquarters on Monday. "It would appear,'' said an official, "that the public have been inundated with stories, which they have evidently acI cepted as being founded on fact, of soldiers who have contracted a venereal disease in Egypt or some other part of the world. It has been stated that soldiers have desired to be reported as 'missing' in girder that their next-of-kin may not know of the viruI lent disease irom which they were suffering, and that the Defence authorities had complied with that wish. , Other stories, equally as ridiculous, have . been circulated throughout the Dominion, and it is "a difficult matter to catch" lip with them. There is absolutely no . truth in these stories, and tht public can rest assured that the Defence Department is only - too willing-to furnish all the information they possess in respect to any member of tho New Zealand Forces to those who desire and are entitled to know it." Surgeon-General R. S. F. Henderson, Director-General of Medical Services, stated that' cases of venereal disease had been treated at Featherston Camp ever since! it was established. There were no virulent cases amongst them, and, in fact, there are none -in the army to-day. The disease was taken in hand in its early stages, and the jnedical treatment given prevented the disease from becoming malignant. In respect to Featherston, the public had nothing to fear, as the cases troated there were all of a curable character, and, iu fact, the majority of the patients were in a convalescent state when admitted. Of the December drafts of returned men only five were suffering from a venereal disease, and the report** received in regard to the January drafts yet to arrive shows that there are seventeen patients. Many of these men are cured on the voyage, and a proportion of the cases represent men who have contracted the disease at way ports. In many instances men are sent to a segregation camp as a precaution, and .probably it would be found, if enquiries were made, that there is a greater number of venereal cases among the civil population than in the army.