November 7. 1918] 



NATURE 



187 



to gel the r is_; li t Minister and to organise the 

 Ministry; and then there is no more than a begin- 

 ning made, ["hi central 1 ganisation is probably 

 the least important part of the health organisation 

 in this country. The most effective portion of the 

 work will have to In- done at the periphery, by the 

 local organisations, as it lias always been done, 

 or, unfortunately in si, me e.ises, left undone. 



The problem that faces the first Minister and 

 the new Ministry is the problem of the organisa- 

 tion of the working forces, and when it is attacked 

 it is within tin- bounds of possibility that the 

 Minister and the Ministry may find that these 

 forces are not distributed throughout the country 

 in a particularly suitable manner. An entirely 

 new method of dividing up ila- country may very 

 bably have to be <K\ised In lore anything can 

 lone. 

 As matters stand al present, health work is 

 distributed most unevenly, lor the reason that the 

 necessity lor a standard unit has never been 

 recognised. The local authority of each district 

 been declared to be the sanitary authority; 

 powers and duties in relation to public health have 

 imposed upon or delegated to it, and that lias 

 been the end of it. The size of the area, the 

 population and, more important still, the rateable 

 value and the wealth or poverty of the district 

 have never been taken into account. 



The result has been that the work has properly 

 been attended to only in the districts where 

 the means were adequate. The large, prosperous 

 districts did all they possibly could; the small, rich 

 districts did superbly because they were small and 

 because they were rich. In the poorer areas as 

 much as could be afforded was done and more or 

 less was hit undone. 



Only within the last few years has it been seen 

 that the question of affording was one of import- 

 anee, and that good might result if grants in aid 

 of necessary work were made. The experiment 

 tried in the case of maternity and child wel- 

 fare schemes, and the result has been that in 

 practically every area an attempt has been made 

 to cover this work. If the whole of public health 

 work is to be covered in every area, grants in aid 

 ol all of it will have to be made. The Minister 

 < alth who recognises this and, having induced 

 the Treasury to see it, gets it put into operation 

 will obtain good results; and if, instead .if having 

 a tlat rate of grant, he gives a percentage that 

 ds with local needs, he will obtain," in the 

 poorer districts particularly, results still better. 

 If he desires to ensure the best results, in addition 

 to making health work more of a national and 

 [ess of a purely local charge, he will arrange also 

 for the proper distribution of the work. Mo 

 the larger areas are too large to be effectively 

 worked ; many of the smaller areas are too small 

 to be though! worth while working. If possible 

 a standard unit of area and population must be 

 devised, and the need for cutting here and group- 

 ing there recognised and put into effect. 



This part of the Minister's task will be less 

 easv even than arranging for grants in aid. 

 NO. 2558, VOL. I02] 



\ ested interests have stood and may still stand, 

 for all that is known, in the way of the formation 

 of the Ministry. Strong as they are, however, 

 they are much less strong than the' vested interests 

 that must be overcome if local reorganisation is 

 attempted. Until they are overcome and the 

 nation's work of looking after the health of the 

 nation is properly parcelled out, the best results 

 cannot be expected. 



The passing of the Ministry of Health Bill, the 

 discovery of a suitable Minister, and the formation 

 of a sound Ministry may bring satisfaction to 

 many. They will not necessarily bring improve- 

 ment in the national health ; will not necessarily, as 

 many appear to think, bring about a total disap- 

 pearance of epidemics and a vast and immediate 

 reduction in the amount of disease and the annual 

 death-rate. 



Marked improvement will be seen only when 

 the work has been properly organised throughout, 

 when it is recognised that the care of the nation's 

 health is a national business and bound to succeed 

 only if it is properly arranged, properly managed, 

 properly financed, and properly supervised. 



A Ministry of Health can, if it will, ensure that 

 these things shall be done; it does not follow- 

 that they have been done when the Ministry lias 

 been formed. 



RACIAL INVESTIGATIONS ON FISHES. 



T"\YO very interesting papers 1 by Dr. Johs. 



■*- Schmidt deal w ith the significance to be at- 

 tached to variation statistics. Taking as his 

 material collections of Zoarccs viviparus, the vivi- 

 parous Blenny, from different parts of the North 

 European coasts, Dr. Schmidt makes mathematical 

 analyses of measurements of various selected char- 

 acters. The paper is tersely and very clearlv 

 written in English, and illustrated by numerous 

 simple and adequate charts, and some maps show- 

 ing the localities sampled. Excellent summaries 

 of the reasoning and conclusions are given in each 

 case. 



A "population-analysis" by variation statistics 

 can scarcely resolve any biological problem ; it 

 merely arranges the material and suggests lines of 

 experiment. Let there be two fish populations, 

 belonging to the same species, in different seas, 

 which do not interbreed, and let certain measur- 

 able characters be chosen for studv. Frequency- 

 distributions with respect to each character and 

 locality are made, average values of the selected 

 character are calculated, and the fluctuations, or 

 probable errors, are then found. If the differences 

 observed are greater than the fluctuations, the 

 usual conclusion is that the organisms are differ- 

 entiated : that they belong to different "races," or 

 elementary species. Dr. Schmidt contends that 

 such a conclusion would, as a rule, be unsound. 

 It may be that repeated sampling of a population 

 gives the same average values for the characters 



the same "racial picture"; nevertheless, to 

 speak of a "race" and found it on such evidence 



1 Comptes reruirts ties Tra-'nu.v tin Laboratoir* tie Carlsberg, 131116 vol., 

 liv. 3, i4me vol., No. 1, 1917. 



