A HIDDEN INSIDIOUS DANGER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 884, 27 August 1910, Page 4

A HIDDEN INSIDIOUS DANGER.

ACTION BY THE MINISTER OF J USTICE. CONFERENCE OF CLERGYMEN AND DOCTORS, At the instance of the Hon. Dr. Findlay (Attorney-General and Minister of Justice) an attempt is being made to secure concerted public action in regard to a serious social evil, none the less real be cause it is not nsually referred to in public. On Wednesday a conference took place in the Minister’s room, attended by twenty clergymen (including the Anglican Bishop of Wellington, several of the Catholic clergy, and representatives of the Ministers’ Association), six medical men, Dr Valintine (chiel health officer), and Dr Hay (chief inspector of mental hospitals), with the object of considering proposals for dealing with the spread of disease. The figures supplied to the conference in connection with the prisons, and the fullest investigations of hospital outdoor patient statistics established beyond all question that these diseases, sapping the vitality of the race, are alarmingly prevalent, and that great harm is being done to perfectly innocent persons, chiefly women and children. It was, we understand, slated that 90 percent, of the infantile blindness is due to diseases of this kind. Those who attended the conference recognised the urgent need of some satisfactory legal remedy. The whole discussion proceeded upon the assurance that the Contagious Diseases Act would be repealed, and that the principles of that Act would in no way be followed in any proposed legislation. The aim of the proposals submitted by the Minister of Justice appears to be the checking of the particular diseases through the agency of the Public Health Act. The regulations proposed would, if adopted, apply to both sexes, and in their main lines they have already obtained the approval of the Wellington branch of the British Medical Association. Every member of the conference evinced or expressed the fullest sympathy with the idea of preventing the spread of the terrible maladies referred to, and the Minister was asked to place his proposals in writing and in definite terms.

If the Attorney-General’s proposals are generally acceptable to those who may be regarded as qualified to speak upon the question, they will be submitted to the Cabinet lor consideration.

Dr Findlay, though unwilling to give details of the conference or the proposals, assured a New Zealand Times representative that it was not called without the fullest justification. “ Representations trom the police, recommendations brought under my notice by coroner's juries, the Public Health Department and prison authorities have,” he remarked, “induced me to take action in this matter as one of urgent and vital importance to the community as a whole. These diseases are of such a character that they are bidden in every possible way, but if the public knew of their extent and insidiousness as it is known to the police, the prison authorities, and above all, the medical profession, it would startle them into a recognition that some steps should be taken to provide a remedy.”— N.Z. Times.