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greatly. Not only were all the available seats taken up but certain pro-
visions had to be made for special reasons and many deserving candidates
had to be refused admission. It now appears that in order to cope with
the growing demand for admission it would be necessary, in the near
future, to consider ways and means of substantially increasing the number
of seats.
While planning the original courses, due consideration had been given to
include such subjects as were of special interest to India, it is felt that
further changes will have to be made to adapt the courses of training to
the actual needs of the rural population amongst whom the need for public
health work is the greatest. It is hoped that a definite improvement in
this direction will be made next year when a rural health unit has been
organised in the vicinity of Calcutta.
The number of admissions to the Diploma course in Maternity and
Child Welfare is at present far from satisfactory. The enormous waste
of life and suffering among mothers and infants in this country, most of
which is preventable, calls for immediate and energetic action on the part
of the various administrations. Lack of funds and scarcity of trained
workers stand in their way. The course offered by the Institute is designed
to produce highly trained officers who could organise and supervise pro-
vincial schemes in maternity and child welfare. It would appear that
the present pay and prospects for trained workers are not sufficiently
attractive to induce women medical practitioners to give up the more
remunerative general line for public health work. Scholarships for the
students have been offered by the Red Cross Society, the Army, and by
Dr. Balfour, but they are not always availed of. Perhaps better response
may be expected if the provincial administrations were to send their officers
for training with definite assurance of employment on attractive salaries.
With regard to the special courses, the demand for training is satisfac-
torily increasing. A scheme has been prepared for organising a special
course in tuberculosis for which there appears to be considerable demand.
In the meantime the Institute has been co-operating with the King George
Thanksgiving (Anti-Tuberculosis) Fund in organising a special course on
tuberculosis every year.
5. Research.—All the sections have devoted considerable time and
attention to research work in their special subjects, keeping in view the
peculiar requirements of this country. It is hardly possible in a brief
review to present even a sketchy resume of the investigations carried out
in the Institute. However, some points of general interest are noted
below.
(i) Cholera .—The world looks to Bengal for the solution of many un-
solved problems in cholera particularly those relating to endemicity and the
origin of epidemics. These problems are very complex as the characteristics
of the true cholera vibrio are by no means known and no laboratory animal
is available to test the pathogenecity of a given organism. Extensive
research work on these problems has been carried out in co-operation with
the School of Tropical Medicine, Central Research Institute, Kasauli, and
other major laboratories in India. Attention was mainly directed to the
study of vibrios from known sources and to recording and interpreting the
actual happenings of epidemiological interest in a selected area in a highly
endemic region. Statistical studies were also carried out to define as