RED CROSS NEWS.

ARGENTINE.

New statutes of the Red Cross.

The Argentine government has recently ratified the new statutes of the national Red Cross Society which had already been approved by the special assembly in 1920. The object of the Argentine Red Cross in time of war is to assist the wounded, without distinction of nationality; in time of peace, to work for the protection and improvement of Public Health, with special attention to the protection of mothers and infants, and to help the aged and infirm; in case of epidemics it is the duty of the Red Cross to come to the rescue and to alleviate sufferings. Questions of policy are decided by the supreme council, which is also charged with questions of administration.

At Buenos-Ayres a central ladies' committee and a general council have been constituted which work according to the regulations established by the supreme council. The general council consists of eight members, chairmen, vice-chairmen, secretaries and treasurers, including those belonging to the central ladies' committee, and a president elected by the two bodies.

In the principal centres Red Cross committees will be organised with branch committees; these will be under the direction of the general council or the central ladies' committee. By applying its new statutes, the Argentine Red Cross will be able to realise its peace-time program, the good effects of which are already being felt in the country.

General Assembly of 1921.

During the regular assembly of the Red Cross, held on June 25 last, the Chairman of the supreme council, Dr. Joaquin A. Llambias, read an interesting report, which is summarised below:

With the inauguration of its new statutes, the Argentine Red Cross has entered a period of fruitful activity. The branch section of Mendoza has been reorganised and similar sections have been created at Salta, Santa Teresa, Coronel Pringles and Santos Lugeres; a free medical dispensary has also been established in connection with the last-named. The Society entertains cordial relations with the national Red Cross Societies in other countries and with the League of Red Cross Societies, the Argentine Red Cross having been represented at the last general council of the League and at the tenth international Red Cross Conference. At the time of the last earthquake in the province of Mendoza the Red Cross took part in the Relief Work and organised a subscription, which resulted in 5,000 pesos. Two automobile ambulances have been purchased and a third has been presented to the Society by the Picardo Limitado company.

Madame G. de Wilde, Chairman of the central ladies'committee, gave an account of the activities of her organisation which have been specially devoted to creating and developing nursing-schools and to Red Cross propaganda. The speaker declared that at present there was not an inhabitant of the Republic who was not acquainted with the peace-time programme of the Red Cross. In this connection she pointed out that last May 3,000 Indians in the Andes made a demonstration in favour of the Red Cross and requested its assistance to protect them against the diseases which were causing ravages amongst them.

Mar del Palta and Buenos Ayres have two social welfare centres and another has been organised in the province of Neuquen.

Nursing-schools exist to the number of 17 and are working regularly, being attended by about 2,000 pupils. Instruction is given free of charge by 47 doctors who give courses in hygiene and first-aid.

Fight against smallpox.

To combat the epidemic of smallpox in San Juan, the Red Cross has sent a health commission and has appealed to all doctors and nurses who are willing to co-operate to send in their names in order to constitute other commissions. The Red Cross commission has published and distributed on a wide scale propaganda pamphlets, containing instructions regarding smallpox, its origin, and methods for combating this disease.

BELGIUM.

Relief for Russian Children. Dr. Depage, Chairman of the Belgian Red Cross, has submitted to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs a plan for bringing into Belgium Russian children, who are to be grouped in colonies in such a manner as to enable their education without interfering with their nationality.

It is proposed to begin with 200 children, who are now in Constantinople suffering great distress. This number would be increased according to the resources available. M. Jaspar, Minister of Foreign Affairs, has approved this plan, which he highly recommends. This project was also submitted to the Brussels Conference and was the subject of its fourth resolution: "The International Commission calls the attention of Red Cross Societies to the importance of saving the greatest possible number of Russian children by methods considered best by these Societies."

CANADA.

New Brunswick Division. On the occasion of the Provincial Red Cross Exhibition organised by the New Brunswick Division of the Canadian Red Cross last September, a special number of the Division's Bulletin was issued, from which the following information is taken:

The recent membership campaign has met with very satisfactory results. The maximum estimate of 10,000 was already nearly reached in September before all the results had come in.

Great progress has also been made during the past year by the Saint John Ambulance Association, which has now 10 local centres in the Province. These centres have a wide influence in spreading knowledge regarding first-aid, home nursing, home hygiene and sanitation. First-aid is now being added to the curriculum of the Normal School, so that every teacher sent out by the institution is qualified to deal with accidents or sudden illness until the arrival of a doctor or a trained nurse, and is furthermore able to give instruction on the subject. An important feature of the work of these local centres is co-operation with the Workmen's Compensation Board, instruction being carried into industrial plants and lumber camps. New centres are under consideration in six places. The people of New Brunswick, and especially those in outlying districts, lose no opportunity to qualify for first-aid work.

Public health nursing is also being developed with enthusiasm, the Provincial Society having already supplied the various counties with nurses. The same applies to child welfare work, the New Brunswick Child Welfare Association having recently held its first public meeting.

FRANCE.

"Société Francaise de Secours aux Blessés Militaires." Bulletin No. 22 of the Société Française de Secours aux Bless's Militaires gives numerous particulars on the various activities of the society.

Among these is an article entitled: "The Day's Work of a School Visitor," being the personal account of one of these " visiteuses scolaires." Her day's programme includes visits to schools, sick children and home investigations, and often conducting

of children to medical consultations when their parents are unable to accompany them. She also assists the medical inspector during his visits to the boys' and girls schools and Kindergarten. Lists are kept of all the children and the various records are compared to ascertain what progress has been made. It is the duty of the School Visitor to keep special watch over those whose records are unsatisfactory, in order to consult with their parents and study their home conditions. She also attends every week the eye and throat examination at the Children's Hospital and is in close touch with the Léon Bourgeois dispensary,

Special attention is given to cases of contagious diseases and, whenever one is brought to the notice of the medical inspector, the School Visitor is instructed to investigate. As a proof that health propaganda succeeds among children, the author of the article recounts that in a house where there was a case of diphtheria, she has heard children explain to their parents that they must be taken to the municipal laboratory to be examined in order to ascertain whether they had caught the infection.

The Bulletin also contains useful practical advise regarding the organisation of a consultation centre for infants, for which the following are considered essential: 1. The cooperation of a doctor with expert knowledge on infant welfare, or, in his default, that of an experienced midwife.

2. Bright and well heated premises, containing a table and a weighing machine for babies, a desk, files for names, addresses and records, and chairs for the mothers to sit on while undressing their babies.

3. Medicaments, such as laxative sirups, talcum and mustard powder, etc.

With regard to food, mothers should be encouraged as far as possible to give breast feeding. However, in certain cases, bottles can be used. Regularity in breast feeding is insisted on and should never exceed 7 times within 24 hours during the first 3 months, 6 times during the following 4 months.

It is also advisable to have a general consultation of the babies at least once a fortnight. At these consultations, besides the doctor and the midwife, there should also be two assistants for weighing and registering the children. Great care must be used regarding accurate measurement and careful record keeping. These consultations should be fortnightly during the first 6 months and should take place once every 4 weeks during the 9 months following. All women registered must notify their confinement and should be visited at home. They should be expected to bring their child to the consultation not later than two weeks after its birth in summer, or four weeks in winter. In order to ensure regular attendance of mothers, it is considered almost indispensable to offer prizes, which may vary from 5 to 25 Frcs. Facilities should also be provided for obtaining cradles, in order that babies are not kept in the same bed as their mothers.

Finally, children should be weighed every 2 or 3 months and more frequently at the start. It is also well to weigh the child before and after breast feeding, in order to ascertain whether it has absorbed the sufficient amount of milk (for the first month 75 gr., for the second 85 gr.).

GREAT BRITAIN.

Junior Red Cross. The statutes of the Junior section of the British Red Cross, which have been recently formulated, officially establish Junior Red Cross membership in Great Britain. The organisation will have its central office at British Red Cross headquarters and will publish a monthly magazine giving accounts of its activities.

The enrolment of members can be either individual or collective. In the latter case it is provided that units applying for membership must consist of at least five and of not more than 36 young people between the ages of 11 and 17. It is also established that at least 20% of the members of each unit should take one or more of the

courses of Junior instruction provided by the Society. Subscriptions are fixed at 4sh. 4d, per individual and per annum, and at 6d. per head for members of units. Social service in the British Junior Red Cross is to include correspondence between British and foreign units and training in First Aid and elementary hygiene, for which certificates will be granted by the British Red Cross.

Home Service Ambulances.

Over 300 Ambulance Stations have now been established by the Home Service Committee. The work done has been steadily increasing, and the reports received as to the utility of the individual ambulances are entirely satisfactory.

There is every prospect that by means of the Home Service Ambulances and the affiliated ambulances, and by friendly arrangement with those authorities who have their own service, it will be possible to provide all districts with invalid transport. In many counties this is already an accomplished fact. It is hoped that during the next few months County Directors and County Committees will devote serious attention to this very necessary work, and will also endeavour to secure representatives in every parish to undertake the duty of acting as local agents of the Ambulance Service.

ITALY.

Automobile Ambulance.

The Automobile ambulance service organised by the Italian Red Cross branch of Cagliari, Sardinia, was inaugurated on July 31, the first voyage being from Cagliari to Oristano. The object of this service is to supply those districts which are partially or entirely deprived of the doctor's care with periodical visits, with advice regarding questions of hygiene, and with free distribution of medicines to the poor. It is also the aim of this automobile service to collaborate with already established local ambulances in the fight against malaria, trachoma and tuberculosis, and to bring swift aid to the sick and seriously wounded, who are transported to the nearest hospital and given first aid treatment en route. No charge is made for poor people, only those who are able to afford it being expected to pay.

A nurse and a doctor compose the personnel of the ambulance, which carries with it all that is needed for urgent medical and surgical treatment, medicines for distribution and food supplies, such as condensed milk, tinned meat, etc.

The automobile ambulance circulates during five days of the week, covering on an average 140 kilometres and visiting about fifteen townships and villages in a day. There is a fixed itinerary and time table which are made public.

Besides the material advantages of this institution, which has already achieved remarkable results, great moral benefit to the population is derived from these periodical visits, good advice and free treatment. During the first two weeks of its activity, the automobile ambulance recorded 170 visits to ordinary cases of sickness, 721 visits to malaria sufferers, 650 injections of quinine bihydrochloride, and 4,000 lire worth of medicine distributed.

The Duchess Elena of Aosta Home. The Italian Red Cross has recently acquired the Valdotra Hospice in Istria, situated on the sea shore about 6 miles from Trieste. The buildings, which were constructed in 1909, are surrounded by a park of about fifty acres and can accommodate approximately 300 children. This home is intended for tubercular children or those predisposed to this disease, excepting pulmonary cases, as well as for those suffering from rickets, anemia, etc.

The main building, as well as the surgical and isolation departments and the dining halls, are close to the beach and sheltered from the wind. The home, in point of equipment, conforms with the highest standards of hygiene. Two striking features are a large swimming bath supplied with sea-water, so that the children are able to take sea-baths during bad weather, and a well-installed sun-bath.

Health Propaganda in Schools. Many open-air schools have been organised in almost all countries on the now firmly established principle that fresh air, light and exercise are precious factors for the health of the child. But although a profound transformation has taken place as regards the general surroundings of school children, the method of teaching has in a great measure remained theoretical and scholastic.

It is therefore interesting to note a new departure adopted by a school-mistress in Milan, Signorina Pizzigoni, in her "Scuola Rinnovata". The system applied in this institute is based on the experimental method and was started ten years ago. So successful has it proved, that the Italian Red Cross last March invited Signorina Pizzigoni to give a lecture in Rome on the health value of the experimental method applied to open-air schools as a complement to open-air classes, which in themselves are already so beneficial. The directors of the Italian Red Cross recommended on this occasion a general application throughout Italy of the open-air school methods, combined with those of the "Scuola Rinnovata " in Milan, for the benefit of all children predisposed to or suffering from tuberculosis. The "Scuola Rinnovata ", which was founded in 1911 in the Ghisolfa suburb of Milan by a private committee with the assistance of the Milan municipality and the Ministry of Public Instruction, now counts 550 pupils of both sexes. In order that the school may really contribute to the preservation of public health, the education of the children in health matters is based, not on rules and precepts, but on the instilling in them of health habits, which, beginning at the age of 6 years and being daily continued in the school for 6 consecutive years, have every likelihood of being maintained by the adults as a matter of conviction and habit.

Under the guidance of the teacher, the child contracts the habit of taking baths and physical exercise and performing manual labour; he also learns the strict observance of the principles of good health. In the course of his instruction he is given an insight into factories and farms, and visits the sea-side and mountains, his teachers being, not the school master or mistress, but the factory hand, the farmer, the fisherman, the mountaineer etc. In this way he acquires knowledge, habits and convictions which are far profounder than any that could be derived from lectures or from the study of text-books, to say nothing of the far greater pleasure with which he learns his lessons. Furthermore, parents, who as a rule do not welcome hygienic instruction or didactical information from outsiders, are. for the greater part, proud to see the progress of their children and ready to follow their example. Thus it comes about that the child, with its naturally expansive nature, insensibly becomes the agent of a useful propaganda, which, under other conditions, would be difficult to carry on and would be uncertain in its results.

The programme of instruction includes languages, arithmetics, drawing, music, household-work and the care of animals, while in his trips through the country, the child learns to love and admire the beauties of nature and art. Finally, the principle of co-education, which has been adopted by the "Scuola Rinnovata," accustoms the children of both sexes from early childhood to associate freely and forms the basis of future rational sex education.

NORWAY.

Red Cross Week. - The Red Cross Week, organised by the Norwegian Red Cross at the end of September, has met with great success. Mr. Hieronymus Heyerdahl, chairman of the Society, has informed the League that the membership campaign, which was the principal object of the Red Cross Week, has resulted in a membership of over 100,000. This means that every one of twenty-five Norwegians is a member of the Red Cross.

For some time before the Red Cross Week there was great activity in all parts of the country, district authorities and local orators co-operating in the work.

There were two main features of the Red Cross Week. One was a model infirmary of a small and inexpensive type, organised on simple and practical lines for the benefit