VARIOUS CABLES

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10428, 20 September 1911, Page 3

VARIOUS CABLES

United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph — Copyright. MEDICAL CONGRESS. (Received Sept. 19, 8.5 a.m.) SYDNEY, September 19. At the Medical uongress, wie committee appointed at last Congress presented a report on the effects af the resolutions then adopted, that no doctor should pass for admission into a friendly society lodge, club at contract rates and remuneration, any person whose weekly income exceeded £4. It was stated that New South Wales was the only State that bad taken definite steps to enforce the rule, and the outcome had been tßiat wage limit clauses were introduced into agreements between doctors and their lodges. Already fivo hundred practitioners had benefited. Victoria was taking the initial steps to enfore the resolution; Westralia, New Zealand, Tasmania, and South Australia had done nothing. The Com-mittee.-strongly urged the profession to make a determined stand to enforce the wage limit clauses throughout Australasia.

(Received Sept. 19, 9.35 a.m.)

SYDNEY, September 19

I At the opening of the Congress, Lord Denman referred to doctors as j public servants, and eulogised their gratuitous work and self-sacrifice in I the cause of humanity. J Dr. Pockled, in his presidental address, declared that the increasing / scope arid complexity of medicine was j such that a lengthened course ni.\ Sjtudy, from three to five years alto- | gether, was insufficient. With the. exception of some portions of tha brain and spinal cord no pants of the body were sacred from the surgeon's knife. Pseudo scientific writers make j exaggerated claims for the usefulness of radio-activity, but practically 11 tihe therapeutic effects of radium ran be got by the Rontgen Rays. Radium i emanations would not cure real cancer : its early removal by the surgeen was the onily rational treatment. Referring to a "white Australia," he declared that the whites could never permanently and continuously occupy the tropics. They must either allow the I country to remain unproductive or .ise coloured labour. The public failed to realise the value of gratuitous work done by the hospitals. In Sydney's two largest, free operations, valued r.t £400,000 per annum, were performed. Altogether the .gratuitous work done in Sydney represented dose on a million- pounds." He dealt exhaustively with _man's acquired immunity from certain diseases through constant contact; and instanced the native races' susceptibility to consumption, as compared with whites, who had experienced the disease" during many generations. Alcohol was more stringent in its effects than tuberculosis. The susceptible were weeded out, and the propagation of the race was left in n large measure to those on whom the craving had no hold. Thus alcohol was not a cause of Tacial degeneration. Al! the evidence showed that'nature eliminated drunkenness. Regarding ougemcs, our limited knowledge did not justify us in taking on ourselves the responsibility of cleansing the race. Better let nature manage in her own way.