MEDICAL CONGRESS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 76, 20 September 1911, Page 5

MEDICAL CONGRESS

DOCTORS AND CLUB PATIENTS. THE SCOPE AND COMPLEXITIES OF •MEDICINE. By Cable—Press Association—Copyright Sydney, September 19. At the Medical Congress the committee appointed at last congress presented a report on the effects of the resolution, then adopted, that no doctor should pass for admission into a friendly society, lodge or club, any person whose weeklyincome exceeded £4. It was stated that New South Wales was the only State that had taken definite steps to enforce the resolution, and the outcome had been that a wage limit clause had been introduced into agreements between doctors and their lodges. Already five hundred practitioners had benefited. Victoria was taking the initial steps to enforce the resolution, but Westralia, New Zealand, Tasmania and South Australia had done nothing. The committee strongly urged the profession to make a determined stand to enforce the wage limit clauses throughout Australia.

In his address at the opening of the congress Lord Denman referred to doctors as public servants, and eulogised their gratuitous work and self-sacrifice in the cause of humanity.

Dr. Pockley declared that the increasing scope and complexities of medicine was such that the lengthened course of study of from three to five years was altogether insufficient. With the exception of some portions of the brain and spjnal cord, no parts of the body were sacred from the surgeon's knife. Pseudo-scientific writers made exaggerated claims for the usefulness of radioactivity. Practically all the therapeutic effects of radium could be got from the Rontgen rays. Radium emanations could not cure real cancer. Early removal by a surgeon was the only rational treatment.

Referring to a White Australia, he declared that whites could never permanently and continuously occupy the tropics:,..-They must either allow the country to remain unproductive or use colored labor . The public failed to realise the value of the gratuitous work done by hospitals. In the two largest hospitals in Sydney free operations valued at £400,000 per annum were performed. Altogether the gratuitous workin Sydney was valued at close on !£1,000,000.

Dr. Pockley dealt exhaustively with man's acquired immunity from certain diseases through constant contaet. He instanced the susceptibility of native races to consumption, and compared that of whites, who had experienced the disease for many generations. Alcohol was more stringent than tuberculosis. The susceptible were weeded out, and the propagation of the race left in a large measure to those on whom the craving had no hold. Thus alcohol was not the cause of racial degeneration; all evidence showed the opposite. Nature eliminated drunkenness. Regarding eugenics, he said that our limited knowledge did not justify' us in taking the responsibility. It was better to let nature manage in her own way. VICE v. DISEASE. STRINGENT MEASURES ADVOCATED Received 20, 12.35 a.m. Sydney, September 19. The Medical Congress discussed a num. bcr of interesting papers. The congress resolved that ,the rates of pay to surgeons in the Australian Navy, suggested by Admiral Henderson in his report, were totally inadequate. Dr. Hain (Melbourne) introduced the subject of venereal diseases and the best methods of preventing them. He contended there should be compulsory notification. Vice should be dealt with solely as a matter of law and order. He advocated undertaking a campaign 0 f publicity and eradication.

Several speakers advocated compulsory notification, and legislation to get rid of quacks.