MEDICAL MISSIONER

Hokitika Guardian, 15 September 1927, Page 4

MEDICAL MISSIONER

WORK IN AFRICA

AUCKLAND, Sept. 13.

Dr H. K. TTareham, medical missioner from Northern Rhodesia, arrived by the M a rani a. to-day after six months visit to Australia. He will be in New Zealand for about six weeks, explaining his work and making an appeal on behalf of tho London Missionary Society to ail the Congregational Churches in tho Dominion. He has worked in Africa for twenty-five years, and has an interesting story to tell of life among the blacks. “ Yes,” he said, “ the Bantu, until, whom I came most in- contact, aro clever people, very quick to learn and

very imitative. Dr Aggery, vice-presi-dent of the Achmiota College, on the Gold Coast, is a full-blooded African, and has men from the universities of England and America working under him.”

Dr AVareliant is in charge of six .stations in Northern Rhodesia. Fourteen white missioners are engaged in the work, which mostly concerns medical education in schools. In the province there are 13,000 children. Five thousand Christians are included, and in classes which teach Christianity there are 20,000. The mission, would soon be helped by a lady doctor, who would specialise in child welfare and mothercraft. That was the great need, for the death rate from common tropical diseases was far too great. At one time the death rate among babies was about 50 per cent, but that had been greatly reduced in the last few years.