23 NOVEMBER 1918, Page 17

We may record the appearance of the Fourth Annual Report

of the Medical Research Committee working under the National Health Insurance Commission (4d. net). It illustrates in various ways the immense value of organized research properly endowed from public funds. The Committee and its numerous experts have been engaged mainly in studying the special problems arising out of the war, but they have also given their attention to industrial diseases—the death-rate from T.N.T. poisoning has been reduced to a seventh of what it was—and to the influenza epidemic. In duo time this well-directed research will have a beneficial effect on the public health, but progress must necessarily be slow.