102 ADMINISTRATIVE SECTION 



Navy; but it might be that they would have separate ser- 

 vices for the different countries. Miss Renaud had referred 

 to the question of pre-natal conditions. On that point 

 he would say that it was somewhat premature to discuss 

 the question at the present time. Notification could 

 be adopted at the present time, and they could appoint 

 their health visitors and keep their infant mortality records, 

 but they could only act on the powers which they had, and 

 amongst those powers he would like to call their attention 

 to the fact that under the National Insurance Act they got 

 for the first time a record of the sickness among the great 

 masses of the population. He thought that they must find 

 out from the actual records of the National Insurance Act 

 the sickness prevalent in the country before they could really 

 undertake the problem of tackling the pre-natal conditions 

 on a large scale. He did not think he had anything more 

 to say, as the other points raised in the discussion had been 

 dealt with. Mr. Buck had suggested that local authorities 

 should have help from the State in this matter, and he (Dr. 

 Fremantle) agreed with him, and he had in fact suggested 

 one method of help, and that was that the expert services 

 which he suggested should be paid for by the State. 



Professor RICHARD CATON said he had only one word to 

 say on the discussion. The medical consultations to which 

 he had referred in his paper were absolutely free. He had 

 not heard of any opposition from the medical profession in 

 the city, because these medical consultations were restricted 

 to the very poor of the city for whom they were intended. 



Dr. GERSTENBERGER said the census statistics could, of 

 course, not be used in the computation of mortality statis- 

 tics that would be of any value, for the simple reason that 

 the census was taken but once every ten years. So at 

 best one could only compare the rate of two individual ten 

 years apart from one another, and this would in all 

 probability be most unreliable, on account of the various 

 factors that would have to be considered weather condi- 

 tions, change in type of inhabitants, &c. 



The meeting then adjourned. 



SECOND SESSION. 



At the afternoon session the chair was occupied for a 

 short time by Dr. NEWSHOLME, and subsequently by Sur- 

 geon-General Sir CHARLES P. LUKIS (India). 



