£120,000,000 INFLUENZA

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 231, 24 June 1919, Page 5

£120,000,000 INFLUENZA

■ -BUT ONLY A SMALL SUM FOR RESEARCH. Sir Kingsley Wood, at jh. National Health Conference of insurance and other organisations in .Central Hall, Westminster. said that influenza had involved an economic loss of .£120,000,000, .while only .£65,000 was given by the Government for research into the causes and prevention of disease. Giving an address on 'Medical Research and the State," Sir Walter Fletcher, 1f.8.E., secretary of the Medical Research Committee (National Insurance Act), said the war had taught us the dependence of the State on scientific work, "A few score lalwratory workers," he said, "saved the country 'from certain defeat, yet in. 1915, when proposals for research w'ere being made a high official 6aid to me, "Research! Damn research! We've got to beat the Oiermans.' All the medical research work is done by. a small army of .men scarcely known, and practically all are unpaid. Even leading men jn professorial positions are considered highly paid if they receive <£800 a year, the .salary of a small bank manager. I know a man who ires given .£IOO by the Government for trying to solve a complex problem during the war. The materials cost him .£9O, and he had to work for two years without payment." Sir L. Worthington Evans, Minister of Pensions, said he would consider a suggestion made that tuberculosis- cases should emigrate to countries where they would havo a better chance of life. According to the Civil. Service estimates for this year, scientific nnd industrial research is to cost jnst under ,£250,000.