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his return from Washington the position had still furtherworsened, and despite the efforts of the governments ofCanada, Australia, and the United States to ease thesituation, this country might have to raise the extraction-rate still higher, or use coarse grains as diluents in thebread ; but he hoped that that might be avoided.

Turning to the Far East, he said that in 1946 exportsof less than 1 t million tons of rice were expected fromBurma, Siam, and Indo-China, compared with a pre-war export of about 6 million tons. Supplies of ground-nuts from India had also dropped, and a whaling expedi-tion to the Antarctic had fallen short of expectations.As a result we should be short in 1946 of our total oilsupply by well over 100,000 tons. It had never been hisintention to discontinue the issue of dried egg per-manently. Summing-up, Sir Ben Smith said ’that,while he did not wish to leave the impression that allwas well,- the food position was not as bad as the Opposi-tion thought. The world sugar position was precarious.He would do his best to maintain the bacon ration.Cheese and starch were causing anxiety. He warnedthe House that failure to get the American loan wouldcause further difficulties. There was a prospect ofimprovement in the deliveries of bananas, oranges, andlemons, and fruit and ’vegetable imports would beencouraged. Milk supplies were better than last winter,fish supplies would be back this year at least to pre-war level, the potato situation was satisfactory, andthere were more shell eggs.

QUESTION TIME

Social Research Council

Dr. STEPHEN TAYLOR asked the Lord President of theCouncil if the Government would establish a Social ResearchCouncil, on similar lines to the Medical Research Council, inview of. the difficulties under which social scientists hadlaboured in this country in the past.-Mr. HERBERT MORRISONreplied : I understand that the committee under the chairman-ship of Sir John Clapham, which is, at the request of theChancellor of the Exchequer and myself, examining the

adequacy of the existing provision for research into economicand social questions, has given considerable attention to thispoint, and I would prefer to wait and see any observationson it that may be made in their report before reaching anyconclusion.

Nutrition in Newfoundland

Mr. J. LEwIs asked the Under-Secretary of State forDominion Affairs what action has so far been taken inNewfoundland to deal with malnutrition resulting from

dietary deficiencies; and when the report on the wholesubject is to be published.-Mr. J. PARKER replied : Actingon expert advice, the Newfoundland government have takenfortified flour and margarine to overcome the lack of balancein the normal diet of sections of the Newfoundland people.In addition they invited a committee of experts on nutritionalquestions from the United Kingdom, Canada, and the U.S.A.to visit Newfoundland in the summer of 1944 to survey theisland. The report of this committee was published in theCanadian Medical Association Journal in the spring of 1945(see Lancet, 1945, i, 760) and it has since been the subject ofdetailed study by the commission of government. A furthervisit to Newfoundland was undertaken in August of last

year by Dr. D. P. Cuthbertson, now director of the RowettResearch Institute, who, during the course of his discussionswith the Newfoundland authorities, put forward a number ofpreliminary recommendations for their consideration. Dr.Cuthbertson’s full report is expected shortly.

Congenital Defects in German MeaslesDr. TAYLOR asked the Lord President of the Council if

his attention had been drawn to investigations suggestingthat deaf-and-dumbness in infants results from an attackof German measles in the mother during early pregnancy ;and if, in view of the importance of this matter, the MedicalResearch Council would speedily undertake the investigationneeded to substantiate or disprove these findings.-Mr.MORRISON replied : The Medical Research Council havereceived reports from Australia suggesting that certaincongenital defects in children, including deafness, may becausally connected with infectious disease in the mother

during pregnancy. They are already investigating the subjectand the question of the effect on the child’s hearing is receivingspecial attention.

In England NowA Running Commentary by Peripatetic CorrespondentsI ARRIVED in Poland with 3 tins of cocoa and 6 of

dried milk in an untidy paper parcel as my contributionto starving Europe. As we drove from the airfieldto Warsaw’s political centre, the Hotel Polonia, I noticedbarrels of apples on sale in the streets. Then in a caf4window such cream cakes as I’d long since ceased todream about. Finally the waiter knocked at my bed-room door : " It’s a little late, Sir, but would you carefor breakfast-two eggs or three, and ham or bacon ? " Poland is certainly a country of contrasts. If you have ethe money, there are five-course lunches, fully fashionednylons, and Chanel Cinq (for the ignorant, the safestbet in the scent line). If you have an artisan wage, youlive in half a room or in a wood and mud shack on bread.vegetables, and soup. So it’s hardly surprising ’thatthe medical supplies Poland needs most are not surgicalinstruments and drugs, but livestock, lorries, and tractors.Poland is normally a food-exporting country. Now thedifference between starvation and a bare subsistenceminimum is being bridged by UNRRA supplies. ThePoles are getting their agriculture going once more ;the big estates have been broken up ; cooperative market-ing is developing ; but I think it will be the middle of1947 before Poland can hold her own on the food front.The Germans stole the bulk of Poland’s livestock.

So what little milk there is goes to expectant mothersand young children. For the rest, the rationing systemis primitive. Only workers in nationalised enterprisesand in enterprises engaged on more than 50 % of govern-ment work (and their families) get ration cards. Sinceall industry employing more than 50 workers per shifthas been nationalised, about 60 % of the urban populationare entitled to rations. These rations-bread, a littletea, sugar. and fat-are sold at controlled prices, butdistribution difficulties are so great that rations are

not always obtainable. All other food is sold on thefree market, with no price control. Prices are veryhigh, but as supplies increase they are beginning to fall.This system was in fact the only one possible, becausethe German occupation and the bloodv liberation of thecountry by the Russians had virtually destroyed alladministrative machinery. Its results are, first, thatthere is gross inequality. Next, there, can be no blackmarket because there is no price control. Finally,there is a rush for government jobs, so as to get rationcards ; and since Civil Service wages are very low, manycivil servants do a second job after office hours.

In the’ destroyed cities-Warsaw and Wroclaw(Breslau), for example-overcrowding is appalling, butrebuilding has begun both here and in the countryside.With an overcrowded population, badly fed and inter-mittently starved for six years, it is natural that tuber-culosis and infant mortality should present the twobiggest health problems. Before the war, Poland hadthe second highest infant death-rate in Europe. Nowit is more than doubled, and in many parts 50 out ofevery 100 babies born die ’before the age of one. Ofthose who survive, a great number develop rickets.The death-rate from tuberculosis has gone up 8.times.About 40 % of school-children and 25 % of universitystudents show evidence of tuberculosis.The third great scourge of Poland is venereal disease.

Treatment is free, but presents an almost impossibleproblem because over a million people have registeredto receive it. Furthermore, the Germans supplied theirsoldiers with sulphonamide drugs to take. as a means ofpreventing gonorrhoea. As a result, the Polish gono-coccus is sulphonamide-resistant. UNRRA is sendingin large quantities of penicillin by air, and fortunatelythis is proving most effective.

I expected to find epidemics raging in Poland. Itis a tribute to Dr. Litwin, the minister of health, and hisstaff that this is not so. Typhus had been reduced to100 new cases a week, almost all in the new territoriesacquired from Germany. Typhoid, also worst in theWest, is now under control, and in the areas of greatestrisk over half of the population has received anti-typhoid inoculation. One of the difficulties is that theGermans are hiding cases of typhoid from the Polishdoctors and hospitals. This is not surprising when one

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remembers the way the Germans treated the Polish sick.In Cracow, for example, all the senior medical staff ofthe hospitals were removed to concentration camps(where half of them died) and untrairied German doctorsand surgeons were put in charge to get experience on thePolish patients. The only epidemic of any. seriousnesswas an outbreak of diphtheria in Lodz ; there the Polishmedical staff were in difficulties and only half the childrencould receive antitoxin. Before the war vaccinationwas compulsory in Poland ; between 90 and 95 % ofchildren were vaccinated ; and smallpox had beenunknown for many years. Since the war vaccinationlapsed and there have been a few cases, but no epidemic.We in England reckon we are short of doctors with

something like one per 1000 of population. In Poland,before the war, there were 12,000 doctors. Now thereare 6000 to a population of 22 million. More than three-

-quarters of Poland’s population is rural; yet more thanhalf the doctors are in the towns. Combined with theappalling lack of transport, the result is that most of thepeasants just have no medical service at all. Thegovernment has recently introduced legislation to directdoctors under 55 into rural areas, and peasant cooperativemedical insurance schemes are being started. Thenursing situation is even worse. Pre-war there were29,000 trained nurses ; now there are 9000, and nursingrecruitment is as much a problem in Poland as in England.With such a shortage of personnel, any comprehensivehealth service on our lines is out of the question. As withus, hospitals are municipal and voluntary, the latterbeing mainly Church or university institutions. Theirbuildings are variable, but the quality of work is good.Waiting-lists are appalling and many more hospitalsare needed. Medical training is being speeded up, andthe percentage of women doctors is increasing (now 20 %’6f students), but there is still some prejudice against them.

* * *

There is mutiny in the home. Amazon cries for theblood of Sir Ben are heard in a thousand houses wherea few short weeks ago the daily chores were pursued indomestic peace. The Minister of Food himself appliedthe spark to the powder-keg on wbich he was perchedby casually dropping dried eggs, having been apparentlyunaware of their explosive charge. In these days ofpublic-relations departments, propaganda, and pollsof opinion, when the thoughts of the nation are system-atically canalised, converted, or docketed, it is refreshingto encounter a Minister with his head in the air (or is itthe sand ?), heedless of the passing throng. Not soheedless now, for the hunt is up, and the ladies won’tlet any Gallup save their prey.The housewife’s case deserves a sympathetic ear ;

that it has not been more widely heard before is duesimply to her long forbearance. For more than sixyears she has daily sought to devise new dishes from all-too-familiar ingredients, to make four ounces do duty fora pound, to satisfy young appetites by forgoing herrightful share. For more than six years she has, withouthelp, maintained the home by making and patching andmending. And for more than six years she has ploddedforth and wasted precious time in queues, often to be

rewarded with " only for our regular customers," or

44-none till Friday." Whoever else stole a holiday, itwas not the housewife. She has been always on thejob, living not over the shop but in it. She sustainedherself by glorious dreams of

" after the war," and whenthe war did at last end, no-one told her bluntly that timesfor her would still be hard and might even get harder.Now she is tired out. A-round her she sees almost everv- other section of the community returning towards normalWith relaxation of controls and the issue of better supplies,whereas the first winter of peace will end for her with allthe old restrictions still in force, and a few new ones forgood measure.

It behoves us to avert a sit-down strike in the kitchen.How can we help ? In the first place, the distributivetrades are still grossly understaffed. The defenceproduced in some quarters that delay in shopping is dueto shortage of supplies is specious, or-not to put toofine a point on it-phoney. The delay is due to shortageof labour behind the counter. Has it occurred to nobodythat more man-hours are wasted by people waiting inqueues than would be sacrificed by allotting extraassistants to the shops ? This is a simple theory, and

therefore unlikely to be considered sound economics, butit appeals to me.

If the housewife cannot have more eggs and cookingfat for cakes and puddings, at least give. her somelatitude in the non-essential foods. Let us use everyavailable hold in ships returning from countries in thesterling bloc for foods that were rightly excluded duringthe war-all those non-essential oddments that used todelight our palates, and which can now ease. the lot ofthe cook in her continued plight. Come to that, are wemaking fair use of present supplies ? What of the 12 %that goes to catering establishments ? Does each house-hold (collectively or through one member) take an eighthof its food outside the home ? If not, then the presentsystem is unfair and should be replaced by one demandingthe surrender of a coupon for every meal taken in apublic place which contains rationed food. The adminis-trative objections to this course must bow before theneed for an equal share for all.The housewife has long been pondering on these

questions. Now she has suddenly found her voice andspoken with a force that has compelled attention. It isa feminine gibe that the regulation of food (and, for thatmatter, of clothes) is devised by ignorant males with nounderstanding of domestic matters. This may beunjust ; but I hope the Government will not lightlydismiss the housewife’s claim for a place in the councilsof the Food Ministry. In the meantime, the Minister ofFood ought to desert his office one day and spend anhour or two in a queue-his ears would burn.

INDUSTRIAL REABLEMENT

AT a luncheon in London on Feb. 13 to mark the startof new development at Roffey Park RehabilitationCentre, Lord HORDER, the chairman, said that the centrehad provided a unique service ; the time had come toinaugurate the second chapter-that of training andresearch.

Sir STAFFORD CRIPPS, President of the Board of Trade,emphasised the importance of domestic stress in deter-mining breakdowns among industrial workers. Rehabili-tation after medical illnesses had not received the sameattention as the rehabilitation of surgical disorders,and the mental casualties of industry were apt to becomewasted derelicts for lack of proper attention. Hesupported Lord Horder’s concept of sub-health; the aimmust be to replace this by positive health. If machineswere to be used efficiently, the operators must bephysically and psychologically fit ; morale, good health,and proper selection were all important. In the Servicesthe individual had been considered as an individual,and not merely as one unit in a statistical calculation ;the same approach was needed in industry. The timehad come to study the science of happiness and comfortrather than the techniques of speed and mass murder.Roffey Park provided, for the sub-health group, treatmentwhich restored their happiness and confidence. A train-ing and research department was now to be developed ;this would break down the barrier between doctor andindustrialist, and help to coordinate modern science andindustrial experience.

Mr. GEORGE TOMLINSON, Minister of Works, supportingan appeal for money for the second phase of the workat Roffey Park, suggested that employers should putaside money for depreciation of their employees in thesame way as they did for their machines. Roffey Parkhad added to the country’s productive capacity.

In addition to its existing facilities (see Lancet, 1945,ii, 607) the centre is now to provide residential trainingcourses in industrial health and resettlement for thebenefit of managerial staffs and medical, personnel, andwelfare officers ; it is hoped that trades-union officialswill also attend. The staff will spend part of its timein factories and offices, giving technical advice andcarrying out surveys.

THE British Social Hygiene Council proposes to hold asummer school at Wadham College, Oxford, from Aug. 1 to 15.The inclusive fee of the course, which is intended primarilyfor teachers, is fourteen guineas. Further particulars may beobtained from the council at Tavistock House North, London,W.C.1.