H.—3la

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to us that it wouM be a very proper course of action for other municipalities of the large centres likewise to make such contribution to the humane work in which this Order is so successfully engaged. it was wisely presented to us "|that there is a great number of women in the community who, though they have no desire to become trained nurses, yet show great natural aptitude for tending the sick. Would it not be a great benefit to the community if women of this type could receive limited but practical training in home nursing ? " South African Commission. We have read with considerable interest the valuable report of a Royal Commission, appointed in South Africa on the 4th December, 1918. It is worthy of consideration that in this report the South African Commission in describing the nature of the disease, its incidence, progress, and effects, uses the exact terms which we would apply to our own experience of the disease in New Zealand. In addition to this we find that a number of conclusions arrived at by the Commission, herein referred to relating to questions of administratlve,fprecautionary, and educational courses of action are such as will equally apply to conditions existing in New Zealand. International Health Supervision. A great deal of evidence which we received had relation to the existing conveyance of information from one country to another upon matters vital to the guidance of national and local authorities in dealing with any attacks of an infectious disease in the earliest stages of an epidemic which may prove to be pandemic later on. At present there does not appear to be sufficient promptitude or exact direction shown in the conveyance of important details of information. Captain Thomas Carnwath, D.5.0., M.8., lecturing on " Lessons of the Influenza Epidemic " at the Royal Institute of Public Health, London, with Sir Arthur Newsholme in the chair, said, " The first appearance of the disease in. Great Britain seemed to have been at Glasgow in May, and as early as April it had been prevalent in our own armies in France." To the lay mind it appears strange that with this early experience in 1918 the authorities in New Zealand should not have had fuller information apprising them of what was to be guarded against some time'before October. The South African Commission reports thus on this question : — 'It is to be regretted that no concerted international action was taken at an early date in connection with this disease, and it is to be hoped that one of the results of the epidemic will be the establishment of an international organization for the rapid dissemination of authoritative information regarding epidemics. Pending the inauguration, of such an international organization, the Commission is of opinion that it should be one of the functions of the Union Health Department to obtain as full information as possible regarding the outbreak of epidemic diseases in other parts of the world, and the best methods of dealing therewith, with a view to enabling the Government to consider possible F measures for preventing their entrance into the Union, and T organizing the methods of combating them n the event of an outbreak in the Union." The regret here expressed and thefrecommendations are just what we had determined on before the report we are quoting from, came into our possession, and we strongly recommend that the Government of our Dominion immediately enter into negotiations with the Governments of other countries with a view to establishing and participating International Bureau r for and dissemination of information bearing on the prevention and limitation of disease, more particularly with the object of obtaining information in regard to epidemics. Medical Research. In Dunedin strong representations were made to the Commission in the direction of emphasizing the importance of "medical-research work throughout the Empire. It was urged that a medical representative in England should be attached to the