Sessional_Paper_1903 — Page 441

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£3,500, and with six students to be resident on the premises, in maintenance £1,100 per annum. They suggested that the fee for a course of not less than 4 weeks should be:

Resident students per week Non-resident students per week

£ s. d.

4 4 0

2 2 0

and they added that they would propose also to admit to the school students other than those sent by the Colonial Office.

7. On the 30th of June following, after communication with the Lords of the Treasury, I was able to accept the scheme which the Committee had put forward, ou the

terms-

(1) That a contribution of £3,500, the exact sum given in the estimate as the initial cost of school buildings, should be made on behalf of the Colonies and Protectorates concerned;

(2) That the fees should be as stated in the Committee's letter;

(3) That a representative of the Colonial Office should be admitted to the Board

of Management of the hospital.

These terms were accepted in a letter of the 14th July, 1898.

To the allotment of the expenditure which was thus guaranteed further reference will be made.

8. On the 11th of March, 1898, I caused a letter to be addressed to the General Medical Council and the leading Medical Schools of the United Kingdom, pointing out the importance of ensuring that all medical officers selected for appointment in the tropics should enter on their careers with the expert knowledge requisite for dealing with such diseases as are prevalent in tropical climates, and stating that, while special arrangements would be made for giving clinical instruction in tropical medicine, it was very desirable that, before undergoing such special training, the future medical officers of the Colonies should be given facilities in the various inedical schools for obtaining some preliminary knowledge of the subject. It was added that, in order to encourage the study of tropical medicine in the schools, I would be prepared to give preference, in filling up medical appointments in the Colonies, to those candidates who could show that they had studied this branch of mediene, especially if some certificate or diploma to that effect were forthcoming.

Most of the answers to this letter were sympathetic and encouraging, and the correspondence showed that in upwards of twelve British medical schools, some of them situated at large seaports, arrangements either already existed or were about to be made for giving special instruction in tropical medicine. A resolution was adopted by the General Medical Council in the following terms:

That, while the Council is not prepared to recommend that tropical medicine should be made an obligatory subject of the ordinary medical curriculum, it deems it highly desirable, in the public interest, that arrangements should forthwith be made by the Government for the special instruction in tropical medicine, hygiene, and climatology of duly qualified medical practitioners who are selected for the Colonial inedical service, or who otherwise propose to practise in tropical countries.” 9. Meanwhile, on the 2nd of February, 1898, Sir C. Gage-Brown was asked to preside over a committee, the members of which, in addition to himself, were Dr. Manson and three other doctors of long Colonial experience, to consider a suggestion of Dr. Manson's that some uniform scheme for the medical reports of the Colonies should be devised; that the scientific portions of such reports should be published in a separate volume; and that the volume should contain an appendix in which would be printed special papers upon the particular diseases of the different Colonies.

On the 4th of July these gentlemen submitted their recommendations; a model medical report, which they had prepared was sent out to the Colonies in my circular despatch of the 25th July, 1898; and, when the replies to the circular had been received, Dr. Manson was good enough, in the light of such suggestions as had been made, to revise the form of the report, which was sent out in its final shape in my circular despatch of 27th April, 1900, with an expression of hope that the model would be conformned to so far as the circumstances of each Colony would admit.

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