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Health of Malta
157 Mr. L. A. PAviTT said that the Opposition’s major worry was that Conservative economists seemed to think that an element of payment in the Health Service could provide more resources without harming the basic provision; that was nonsense.
Education of Mentally
Handicapped
THE Education (Handicapped Children) Bill, which was read a second time in the Commons on July 13, will transfer responsibility for the education of mentally handicapped children from local health authorities to local education authorities. Mr. WILLIAM VAN STRAUBENZEE, Under Secretary, Education and Science, said about 28,000 children would be affected by the Bill, three-quarters of that number at present attending junior training centres administered by local health services. Under the Bill junior training centres would be run by local education authorities as part of their special educational provisions, and those authorities would also be responsible for educat-
ing children in hospitals for the mentally handicapped. Local education authorities would rely on the continued help and support of present staffs. A number would receive qualified-teacher status under the education regulations, but the majority would not, in the strict technical sense, be regarded as qualified teachers. Training of teachers for the mentally handicapped would now be integrated into the normal structure of teacher training. The Secretary of State was putting in hand consultation with local-authority representatives, existing staffs, and the teachers’ associations about the desirability of fixing a period shorter than five years for achieving qualified teacher status.
Public Health Health of Malta Malta is a warm, dry island about equidistant between Aberdeen and Lagos. The chief problems of medicine are much the same in all three. As in many places in the Mediterranean basin,’ Malta has a water-supply which, though adequate, is often liable to pollution and requires constant laboratory control. Sewage disposal is equally a mixture of the sophisticated and the primitive, but coastal pollution is not yet a problem. Typhoid fever is endemic, averaging about 50 cases a year in a population of just over 150,000. A report1 on health in Malta hints that carriers are detected by a slide agglutination reaction; if so, many bacteriologists would like to know how it is done. Undulant fever (the old name is retained in the locus classicus) is now a relatively rare disease. Milk pasteurisation is satisfactory, but no distinction is made between milk derived from cows or goats. Leishmaniasis in its Mediterranean form lingers on, but trachoma seems to have been eradicated. Leprosy is a constant if minor threat, and a hospital is reserved for these unfortunates. As in almost every warm country between China and Peru, tuberculosis is the most prevalent of all the more serious infectious diseases; it may be one of the penalties of affectionate and overcrowded family life. The methods used for its control seem to be much the same as in Great Britain. Every effort is made to encourage the immunisation of children against diphtheria and tetanus, but the figures suggest that the service might be extended. The most dramatic happening in the years covered by the report was a small outbreak of methyl-alcohol poisoning with several deaths, which was traced to a single firm which bottled a variety of spirits of unfamiliar brands. 1.
on the Health Conditions of the Maltese Islands and on the work of the Medical and Health Department for the years 1965, 1966, 1967. Malta: Department of Information. 1970. In three volumes.
Report
This report is produced economically, and it is preferable the costly and elegant printing usual in this country for matter of such transient interest. But it omits much which the outsider would like to know. How, for instance, are the health services of the islands financed ? The table of the staff employed suggests that numbers are adequate, but it omits doctors in private practice. More might be said about such measures as meat inspection and the current figures for venereal disease, which is here lumped with diseases of the skin. Many inhabitants of Great Britain are now thinking of settling in Malta. They need not expect to be exposed to any serious risk to their health, but they would be advised to look to the water-supply of their villas. to
Obituary ALAN HENDERSON HUNT
D.M., M.Ch. Oxon., F.R.C.S. Mr. Alan Hunt, senior surgeon to the Royal Hospital of St. Bartholomew and the Royal Marsden Hospital, London, died on July 4 at the age of 61. He was educated at Charterhouse, Balliol College, Oxford, and St. Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical College, graduating B.M. in 1934. He became F.R.c.s. in 1937, and obtained the D.M. at Oxford in 1941, and the M.CH. a year later. He served in the Army during the 1939-45 war, in which he finally became senior medical officer to the Special Service Brigade (Commandos). After the war he was appointed to the staff of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital and the Royal MarsHe received many den. honours during his career, including the presidency of the Section of Proctology of the Royal Society of Medicine. In 1952 he became a Hunterian professor of the Royal College of Surgeons and in 1956 was awarded the Jacksonian prize. He was appointed to the court of examiners of that college and subsequently became chairman of the court. In 1965 he was elected to the council of the college, an appointment which gave him considerable pleasure and to which he gave of his boundless energy. Those of us who were privileged to work with him could not fail to gain by the warmth of his friendship, his inexhaustible enthusiasm for everything to which he turned his mind and hands, and the excellence of his teaching to both graduate and undergraduate. His skill as a surgeon was internationally known and respected; his professional colleagues came from far and wide to learn from a man who had made his life’s work the study of liver disease. It is a tragedy that England has lost one of its most able surgeons, who instilled into all who were associated with him the highest principles and standards of the subject in which he had become a master. In spite of his devotion to surgery, he always found time to share with his family his intense enjoyment of life, which he flavoured with humour, kindness, and understanding. He leaves a wife and five children. J. 0. R. A memorial service for Mr. Hunt will be held in the Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, West Smithfield, on Wednesday, Julv 29, at 12.15 P.M.
Education of Mentally
Handicapped
THE Education (Handicapped Children) Bill, which was read a second time in the Commons on July 13, will transfer responsibility for the education of mentally handicapped children from local health authorities to local education authorities. Mr. WILLIAM VAN STRAUBENZEE, Under Secretary, Education and Science, said about 28,000 children would be affected by the Bill, three-quarters of that number at present attending junior training centres administered by local health services. Under the Bill junior training centres would be run by local education authorities as part of their special educational provisions, and those authorities would also be responsible for educat-
ing children in hospitals for the mentally handicapped. Local education authorities would rely on the continued help and support of present staffs. A number would receive qualified-teacher status under the education regulations, but the majority would not, in the strict technical sense, be regarded as qualified teachers. Training of teachers for the mentally handicapped would now be integrated into the normal structure of teacher training. The Secretary of State was putting in hand consultation with local-authority representatives, existing staffs, and the teachers’ associations about the desirability of fixing a period shorter than five years for achieving qualified teacher status.
Public Health Health of Malta Malta is a warm, dry island about equidistant between Aberdeen and Lagos. The chief problems of medicine are much the same in all three. As in many places in the Mediterranean basin,’ Malta has a water-supply which, though adequate, is often liable to pollution and requires constant laboratory control. Sewage disposal is equally a mixture of the sophisticated and the primitive, but coastal pollution is not yet a problem. Typhoid fever is endemic, averaging about 50 cases a year in a population of just over 150,000. A report1 on health in Malta hints that carriers are detected by a slide agglutination reaction; if so, many bacteriologists would like to know how it is done. Undulant fever (the old name is retained in the locus classicus) is now a relatively rare disease. Milk pasteurisation is satisfactory, but no distinction is made between milk derived from cows or goats. Leishmaniasis in its Mediterranean form lingers on, but trachoma seems to have been eradicated. Leprosy is a constant if minor threat, and a hospital is reserved for these unfortunates. As in almost every warm country between China and Peru, tuberculosis is the most prevalent of all the more serious infectious diseases; it may be one of the penalties of affectionate and overcrowded family life. The methods used for its control seem to be much the same as in Great Britain. Every effort is made to encourage the immunisation of children against diphtheria and tetanus, but the figures suggest that the service might be extended. The most dramatic happening in the years covered by the report was a small outbreak of methyl-alcohol poisoning with several deaths, which was traced to a single firm which bottled a variety of spirits of unfamiliar brands. 1.
on the Health Conditions of the Maltese Islands and on the work of the Medical and Health Department for the years 1965, 1966, 1967. Malta: Department of Information. 1970. In three volumes.
Report
This report is produced economically, and it is preferable the costly and elegant printing usual in this country for matter of such transient interest. But it omits much which the outsider would like to know. How, for instance, are the health services of the islands financed ? The table of the staff employed suggests that numbers are adequate, but it omits doctors in private practice. More might be said about such measures as meat inspection and the current figures for venereal disease, which is here lumped with diseases of the skin. Many inhabitants of Great Britain are now thinking of settling in Malta. They need not expect to be exposed to any serious risk to their health, but they would be advised to look to the water-supply of their villas. to
Obituary ALAN HENDERSON HUNT
D.M., M.Ch. Oxon., F.R.C.S. Mr. Alan Hunt, senior surgeon to the Royal Hospital of St. Bartholomew and the Royal Marsden Hospital, London, died on July 4 at the age of 61. He was educated at Charterhouse, Balliol College, Oxford, and St. Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical College, graduating B.M. in 1934. He became F.R.c.s. in 1937, and obtained the D.M. at Oxford in 1941, and the M.CH. a year later. He served in the Army during the 1939-45 war, in which he finally became senior medical officer to the Special Service Brigade (Commandos). After the war he was appointed to the staff of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital and the Royal MarsHe received many den. honours during his career, including the presidency of the Section of Proctology of the Royal Society of Medicine. In 1952 he became a Hunterian professor of the Royal College of Surgeons and in 1956 was awarded the Jacksonian prize. He was appointed to the court of examiners of that college and subsequently became chairman of the court. In 1965 he was elected to the council of the college, an appointment which gave him considerable pleasure and to which he gave of his boundless energy. Those of us who were privileged to work with him could not fail to gain by the warmth of his friendship, his inexhaustible enthusiasm for everything to which he turned his mind and hands, and the excellence of his teaching to both graduate and undergraduate. His skill as a surgeon was internationally known and respected; his professional colleagues came from far and wide to learn from a man who had made his life’s work the study of liver disease. It is a tragedy that England has lost one of its most able surgeons, who instilled into all who were associated with him the highest principles and standards of the subject in which he had become a master. In spite of his devotion to surgery, he always found time to share with his family his intense enjoyment of life, which he flavoured with humour, kindness, and understanding. He leaves a wife and five children. J. 0. R. A memorial service for Mr. Hunt will be held in the Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, West Smithfield, on Wednesday, Julv 29, at 12.15 P.M.