22 OCTOBER 1927, Page 12

EXCHANGE OF MEDICAL OFFICERS OF HEALTH.

The other side of the picture is provided by the system of exchanges of Medical Officers of Health, whereby officials of many countries are enabled to study and profit by the experience of one. These exchanges, the value of which appears to be increasingly recognized, have been made possible

by grants from the Rockefeller Foundation of .America. They consist of the organization of a party of some twenty or thirty Public Health officials from as many countries, who spend some six weeks or two months in a single country studying every phase of its public health activity, and finally gathering at Geneva (if the exchange has taken place in Europe) to formulate the conclusions to which their inquiri, have led. Each member of the party is thus enabled to return home and embody in the administrative system of his own country any improvements his experience as a member of the League party may suggest. These exchanges have taken place in Japan and Korea and in Latin America, and an invitation has been received from the Governmen of India for a visit to that country next year.

Disease knows no frontiers, and any effective health measures must be organized on an international scale. The League is doing that through its Health Committee and doing it so far with remarkable success. But on many grounds those who know the League's health work best would claim that its chief value lies in the demonstration it provides of those principles of co-operation in constructive activity which ought to inspire the League in every sphere.

WALTER gLLIOT.