Disease in Pacific

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 950, 17 April 1930, Page 10

Disease in Pacific

LEAGUE OF NATIONS INVESTIGATES

HEALTH conditions among the natives in the Pacific Islands will be improved greatly if the recommendations in a report which has been prepared for the League of Nations are carried into effect. The report was received at the League's headquarters last month. The closer co-ordination o£ medical research work in the Pacific is urged by the League’s experts, who consider, further, that the medical experience gained in the Far East since research began there several decades ago should be made available.

The League’s decision to conduct an official investigation into the problems associated with the health of Pacific Island natives was the outcome of a request made at the International Pacific Health Conference held at Melbourne in 1926. On this occasion it was suggested that a public health survey of Melanesia should be undertaken by the League Health Organisation. This suggestion subsequently was approved by the administrations concerned and by the Assembly and Council of the League. The survey has been made and the report is now in being. In October, 1928, two men—Dr. P. Hermant, senior medical officer of the Indo-Chinese Health Service, and Dr. R. W. Cilento, director of the Division of Tropical Hygiene of the Commonwealth Department of Health—left Sydney and began work within the boundaries of Melanesia. FIELD OF OPERATIONS Their field of operations extended from Eastern New Guinea to Fiji, embracing that portion of New Guinea under Australian mandate, the British Solomon Islands, portion of New Hebrides and New Caledonia. The object of the investigators was to decide what were the points on which investigation would be of the most value to the islands concerned, and to show the most suitable means of concentrating upon those points. Moreover, they wished to trace lines of investigation for the advancement of epidemiological knowledge, in pursuance of the Pacific Health Conference’s recommendations that the League of Nations Health Organisation should give all practical assistance to such work in the Pacific zone, particularly with the object of initiat-

ing or promoting schemes of coordinated research. COLLECTION OF DATA In the report now prepared, the investigators contend that the following medical problems might repay research:- —■ (a) Disease problems requiring synchronised local investigations along uniform lines, with collection and comparison at regular Intervals of the data recorded, and discussion in conference of the most advantageous application of the facts thus established. (b) Disease problems beyond the resources of local administrations, ant! requiring investigation from larger health organisations, with complete reports and recommendations (c) Problems in respect to native education in medicine; infantile mor tality and infant welfare; the question of population and depopulation; questions of co-operative and auxiliary medical factors, and so forth. MEDICAL EXPERIENCE The subjects to come under each of these headings are explained in some detail, and tho investigators express the opinion that a greater measure of discussion and exchange of medical experience should be promoted by—(1) Continuing and, where possible, extending the present system of interchange within the Pacific zone. (2) Taking advantage of the fullest extent of organisations designed to facilitate interchange of tropical medical experience in the Far East. (3) Holding conferences at intervals and at suitable centres upon the particular problems of the Archipelago between the heads of the medical departments of the administrations of Melanesia, representatives of schools of tropical medicine, and such specialists as might most advantageously be invited to attend. The report gives also a history of the investigation, a summary of its conclusions, notes on the health conditions and problems of the administrative subdivisions of Melanesia, a general discussion oil the chief diseases of Melanesia, and a discussion of specific diseases.