MEDICAL GEOGRAPHY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 191, 9 August 1878, Page 4

MEDICAL GEOGRAPHY.

[Timaru Herald.}

One of the most comical instances of the odd notions which prevail at Home about Colonial geography, has just come to our notice. Tho " British Medical Journal " of the 9th Mnre'\ under the heading of " The Education of Midwives," contains the following paragraph :—" The education of midwives appears to stand in the Sand- I wich Islands in thp same position as it does in Great Britain, and seeraa to be i a source of similar difficulty. At a coroner's ioquest reported in the Timaru Herald, it appears that a mi'iwife was in attendance in a case in which there was a fatal result and after hearing the evidence of the midwife and the merHral man, the jury added to their verdict that (hey quite disapproved of uncertified females acting as midwives without the supervision of a duiy qualified raedicnl practitioner, Hence in this point, they are nn better off in Timaru than we are in ! G-rent Bt Haiti, and are precisely in ihe game state of Irrquent expression of public opinion on (he sutject, upon which eve y one ngreee, siithojgh nothing is done." When we camo across these queer remarks, wa thought af. first that the "M«dic»l J'HHiuil " mi»ht Imv-- merely tr.a'ie a mi-tnke in i\w. njune of '.he jouinul q oled f-om, nn«l Imve not the "Ticiaru Her»ild" mix-'d up with the "Honolulu G z-tle," or some such Hiwuiinn publication. Ou reference to our own column?, however, we find th';r« the facts detailed by thu " Mcd c il Juurrjul/'and t-ro driven lo fiiu coudusion that ODe of (be leading papers ot its c'".s9 in EnulHtid, nnd the authorised or,-un of she British Medical Association, nctually believes that. New Zealand and the Sandwich I^biuds are idhntifnl, :ind tbut Tim«ru is ona of t f ie yroup ! We !;uvo loot; sineo recoucileii oui selves to the fact of iieople ut Home insisting upon it that New Zealand is in Australia. That is a harmless prejudice which it is quite useless to combat, and which, considering the little interest which is taken in England in these antipodal countries, is not'very vvonderful. How a first class scientific journal, however, could possibly confuse an important British colony with a foreign kingdom in a different part of the world, passes comprehension. The connection of the two places in this way, though, is not uninteresting. It sets us wondering what the present state of the midwife question in the Sandwich Islands really is.