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ARGENTINA
537 and disease of the tonsils or throat in 19-1%. Treatment of these conditions is provided free where necessary. The administration of the Milk and Dairies Act by the local authorities has been on the whole satisfactory, and legal proceedings for non-compliance with statutory
requirements have the report adds
been
successfully instituted, though
that some local authorities were reluctant to take action on the recommendations of their medical and veterinary advisers. This seems to understate the case, for many local authorities fail to appreciate the importance of the act and are unwilling to prosecute negligent milk-producers, while. the local justices fail to impose adequate penalties in the cases brought before them. During the year 952,936 new cases were attended by the 646 dispensing medical officers. It seems, therefore, that about a quarter of the population of Eire received medical attendance under the Medical Charities Act. The income of the Hospitals Trust Fund for 1939 was over £1,202,600, and the expenditure £367,800. Grants of joe270,384 were made to poor-law and county hospitals, and 2209,822 to voluntary hospitals, of which job126,072 was to meet current expenses.
ARGENTINA .
AVIATION
A SERVICE of air ambulances for both official and private use has been established under the control of the national department of health. When used for private patients .the charge is 50 centavos a kilometre. Three machines are permanently attached to this service in the sparsely populated regions of the Chaco and the southern terristories. Analysis of the effects of aviation on both healthy and sick people has led Prof. M. R. Castex and his colleagues to conclude that of the cardiac and circulatory disorders only cases of myocardial degeneration can safely be carried by air, and that patients with respiratory affections other than bronchitis or chronic pleural disorders of a non-exudative nature should also avoid flying. It is planned to establish a division for the sanitary supervision of aircraft in the department of health, with a view to checking the spread of infection by aircraft arriving from infected regions. Aviation is on the increase in the Argentine. In 1938, there landed in Buenos Aires 770 aircraft carrying 7300 passengers, whereas in 1940 the figures were 1800 aircraft and15,800 passengers. Aircraft may carry infected insects, but there is also the .risk that passengers may still be in the incubation period of an infectious disease when they arrive and so will not appear ill. BREAST-MILK CENTRE
The government has established a non-profit-making centre in Buenos Aires for extracting, preserving and distributing surplus breast milk. The old mothers’-milk stations were mainly based on the wet-nurse system, but this centre obtains its milk from normal mothers, and it is found possible to take 200-300 grammes from many mothers without depriving their own children. The donors’ family histories are inquired into, and they undergo a periodic clinical, radiological and serological examination. During 1940 over 5000 litres oftnilk were supplied to 1200 babies from 350 donors. The price charged ranged from 7s. a litre down to nothing according to the means of the recipient ; more than half of the milk was
supplied gratuitously. PSITTACOSIS
During the pandemic of 1929-30, which involved Buenos Aires and part of northern Argentina, about 200 cases of psittacosis were reported. Then in the next nine years there were only isolated cases, but in 1939 an outbreak in Buenos Aires produced 27 cases, of which 13 (48%) died. The disease mainly attacks adults of 45-55 and hardly ever children. Men and women are affected equally, and bird-dealers are, as might be sup-
posed, the commonest sufferers. Cold weather seems to favour the propagation of tne disease, and the incubation period is 7-14 days. During this last epidemic haemorrhagic skin lesions have been observed. No treatment has been of any avail. HEART DISEASE
Of 10,000 school-children examined in Buenos Aires 2-4% had organic heart disease, ’2% being acquired and
the remainder congenital. It is hoped that early recognition of cardiac lesions will improve the prognosis, for Prof. Rafael Bullrich estimates that the mortality from cardio-articular rheumatism is at present as high if not higher in the Argentine than in any other conntry, and a speaker in the Senate said that 2-4% of Argentine children under 14 die from the disease. According to Macera, and Costa Bertani the fatality from acute rheumatism in children under 15 is 22% in Buenos Aires and 12-5% in Rosario. Professor Bullrich has also made a clinical and statistical study of people over 60, and in the last ten years he finds that circulatory diseases accounted for 43% of the deaths between 60 and 80 ; if nephritis is included (and nearly all cases in this age-group are circulatory in origin) the figure rises to 47%. Since 540,000 of the 131 million population of the Argentine are over 60 the social significance of these diseases is clear. The number of hospital beds for such cases is insufficient, but much may be hoped from the work of the Institution for Social Assistance to the Cardiac, of .which Professor Bullrich is director. This institution, which is a voluntary one and has been running for three years, undertakes the care of pregnant women, nursing mothers and children with cardiac lesions, promotes the organisation and equipment of dispensaries and colonies for their treatment, and puts forward legislation on behalf of workpeople with heart disease. At a congress of the institution recently held in Buenos Aires it was urged that clinics for heart disease should be established in the Argentine such as already exist in Britain and the U.S.A. Dr. Luis Sabathie, who has lately published an extensive monograph on the subject, emphasised the inadequacy of purely medical methods in treatment. One remarkable statement made by subsequent speakers was that 70% of anarchists and other revolutionaries suffer from some physical disability which prevents them from following a normal calling.
WOMEN
CONFER ON INDUSTRY
THE second session of the London Women’s Parliament, held on Oct. 27 at the Conway Hall, was attended by 371 delegates representing 211 groups, which included cooperative organisations, guilds, trades unions, dis..;’ cussion groups and education committees. Mrs. NAN. McMILLAN, recently president of the National Union of Women Teachers, took the chair. Miss MARY CORSELLIS, the organiser, was able to inform the meeting of the results of the first session. Improvements had been reported from factories to which the L.W.P. had sent delegates. The Parliament had been recognised by the Minister of Labour ; suggestions on milk rationing and the differential distribution of oranges had been adopted. An investigation of conditions in factories had been carried out and an inquiry into the provision of day nurseries and into school feeding was foreshadowed. Discussion at the second session ranged over abill to regulate supplies and distribution of food, and a series of proposals designed to remove the obstacles now preventing women from playing their full part in industrial
production. The speakers
were lucid and brisk, much more concerned with facts than theories. Among them were
councillors, teachers, transport workers, ambulance drivers, clerks, housewives, nursery school supervisors, canteen managers and workers from clothing, munition and aircraft factories. They had many abuses to point out, but there was a striking growth, during the meeting, of the conviction that it was not by individual and intermittent grumbling that these could be remedied, but by the deliberate and combined action of the women doing the jobs. The factors held to be largely responsible for keeping women from keen participation in the work of production were low wages, insufficient day nurseries, long working hours and consequent shopping difficulties, bad canteens and inadequate transport. WAGES AND WORK
Of these perhaps low wages received least attention in the discussion, although the hardship caused by this factor is sometimes great. Some girls under 20 are unable to earn a wage on which they can get enough to eat. In most factories women are paid much lower
requirements have the report adds
been
successfully instituted, though
that some local authorities were reluctant to take action on the recommendations of their medical and veterinary advisers. This seems to understate the case, for many local authorities fail to appreciate the importance of the act and are unwilling to prosecute negligent milk-producers, while. the local justices fail to impose adequate penalties in the cases brought before them. During the year 952,936 new cases were attended by the 646 dispensing medical officers. It seems, therefore, that about a quarter of the population of Eire received medical attendance under the Medical Charities Act. The income of the Hospitals Trust Fund for 1939 was over £1,202,600, and the expenditure £367,800. Grants of joe270,384 were made to poor-law and county hospitals, and 2209,822 to voluntary hospitals, of which job126,072 was to meet current expenses.
ARGENTINA .
AVIATION
A SERVICE of air ambulances for both official and private use has been established under the control of the national department of health. When used for private patients .the charge is 50 centavos a kilometre. Three machines are permanently attached to this service in the sparsely populated regions of the Chaco and the southern terristories. Analysis of the effects of aviation on both healthy and sick people has led Prof. M. R. Castex and his colleagues to conclude that of the cardiac and circulatory disorders only cases of myocardial degeneration can safely be carried by air, and that patients with respiratory affections other than bronchitis or chronic pleural disorders of a non-exudative nature should also avoid flying. It is planned to establish a division for the sanitary supervision of aircraft in the department of health, with a view to checking the spread of infection by aircraft arriving from infected regions. Aviation is on the increase in the Argentine. In 1938, there landed in Buenos Aires 770 aircraft carrying 7300 passengers, whereas in 1940 the figures were 1800 aircraft and15,800 passengers. Aircraft may carry infected insects, but there is also the .risk that passengers may still be in the incubation period of an infectious disease when they arrive and so will not appear ill. BREAST-MILK CENTRE
The government has established a non-profit-making centre in Buenos Aires for extracting, preserving and distributing surplus breast milk. The old mothers’-milk stations were mainly based on the wet-nurse system, but this centre obtains its milk from normal mothers, and it is found possible to take 200-300 grammes from many mothers without depriving their own children. The donors’ family histories are inquired into, and they undergo a periodic clinical, radiological and serological examination. During 1940 over 5000 litres oftnilk were supplied to 1200 babies from 350 donors. The price charged ranged from 7s. a litre down to nothing according to the means of the recipient ; more than half of the milk was
supplied gratuitously. PSITTACOSIS
During the pandemic of 1929-30, which involved Buenos Aires and part of northern Argentina, about 200 cases of psittacosis were reported. Then in the next nine years there were only isolated cases, but in 1939 an outbreak in Buenos Aires produced 27 cases, of which 13 (48%) died. The disease mainly attacks adults of 45-55 and hardly ever children. Men and women are affected equally, and bird-dealers are, as might be sup-
posed, the commonest sufferers. Cold weather seems to favour the propagation of tne disease, and the incubation period is 7-14 days. During this last epidemic haemorrhagic skin lesions have been observed. No treatment has been of any avail. HEART DISEASE
Of 10,000 school-children examined in Buenos Aires 2-4% had organic heart disease, ’2% being acquired and
the remainder congenital. It is hoped that early recognition of cardiac lesions will improve the prognosis, for Prof. Rafael Bullrich estimates that the mortality from cardio-articular rheumatism is at present as high if not higher in the Argentine than in any other conntry, and a speaker in the Senate said that 2-4% of Argentine children under 14 die from the disease. According to Macera, and Costa Bertani the fatality from acute rheumatism in children under 15 is 22% in Buenos Aires and 12-5% in Rosario. Professor Bullrich has also made a clinical and statistical study of people over 60, and in the last ten years he finds that circulatory diseases accounted for 43% of the deaths between 60 and 80 ; if nephritis is included (and nearly all cases in this age-group are circulatory in origin) the figure rises to 47%. Since 540,000 of the 131 million population of the Argentine are over 60 the social significance of these diseases is clear. The number of hospital beds for such cases is insufficient, but much may be hoped from the work of the Institution for Social Assistance to the Cardiac, of .which Professor Bullrich is director. This institution, which is a voluntary one and has been running for three years, undertakes the care of pregnant women, nursing mothers and children with cardiac lesions, promotes the organisation and equipment of dispensaries and colonies for their treatment, and puts forward legislation on behalf of workpeople with heart disease. At a congress of the institution recently held in Buenos Aires it was urged that clinics for heart disease should be established in the Argentine such as already exist in Britain and the U.S.A. Dr. Luis Sabathie, who has lately published an extensive monograph on the subject, emphasised the inadequacy of purely medical methods in treatment. One remarkable statement made by subsequent speakers was that 70% of anarchists and other revolutionaries suffer from some physical disability which prevents them from following a normal calling.
WOMEN
CONFER ON INDUSTRY
THE second session of the London Women’s Parliament, held on Oct. 27 at the Conway Hall, was attended by 371 delegates representing 211 groups, which included cooperative organisations, guilds, trades unions, dis..;’ cussion groups and education committees. Mrs. NAN. McMILLAN, recently president of the National Union of Women Teachers, took the chair. Miss MARY CORSELLIS, the organiser, was able to inform the meeting of the results of the first session. Improvements had been reported from factories to which the L.W.P. had sent delegates. The Parliament had been recognised by the Minister of Labour ; suggestions on milk rationing and the differential distribution of oranges had been adopted. An investigation of conditions in factories had been carried out and an inquiry into the provision of day nurseries and into school feeding was foreshadowed. Discussion at the second session ranged over abill to regulate supplies and distribution of food, and a series of proposals designed to remove the obstacles now preventing women from playing their full part in industrial
production. The speakers
were lucid and brisk, much more concerned with facts than theories. Among them were
councillors, teachers, transport workers, ambulance drivers, clerks, housewives, nursery school supervisors, canteen managers and workers from clothing, munition and aircraft factories. They had many abuses to point out, but there was a striking growth, during the meeting, of the conviction that it was not by individual and intermittent grumbling that these could be remedied, but by the deliberate and combined action of the women doing the jobs. The factors held to be largely responsible for keeping women from keen participation in the work of production were low wages, insufficient day nurseries, long working hours and consequent shopping difficulties, bad canteens and inadequate transport. WAGES AND WORK
Of these perhaps low wages received least attention in the discussion, although the hardship caused by this factor is sometimes great. Some girls under 20 are unable to earn a wage on which they can get enough to eat. In most factories women are paid much lower