"ABSOLUTELY ABSURD"

Evening Star, Issue 22441, 11 September 1936, Page 8

"ABSOLUTELY ABSURD"

NO 810 CHEMISTRY COURSE NEW ZEALAND UNIVERSITY CRITICISED That a university with a student roll of about 4,000 should have. no course in bio-chemistry is to me absolutely absurd, considering the importance of the fundamentals of biochemistry in New -Zealand’s economy —in the dairy industry, wool, and A frozen meat industries, .wheat-growing, ° pastures, and animal nutrition, and ‘ better medical services.” This statement was made by Dr J. Melville, of the Wheat Research Institute,, in concluding an address upon bio-chemistry to members of the Scientific Society at Canterbury University College last evening (states the ‘Press’), _ “ Bio-chemistry really had its beginnings as an offshoot of human physiology,” he said. “It has been recog- . nised, however, that-vio-ohemistry as a distinct science. was of interest to a far larger body of people than merely to medical men, and the last few years have seen a growing divorcement of bio-chemistry from the medical schools. “ Here in New Zealand the position - has not been changed. To my' knowledge, there is no bio-chemistry taught ■' in the University of New Zealand apart from the very scanty treatment given it in the Otago Medical School. I may . add that the course is available only to medical students and to home science ’ students, and. that it does not count as a degree subject. There are as yet . ,but few signs of any actual divorce between bio-chemistry and medicine.”-