Papua

Diet And Native

Health

Dr. Clements’ Researches In Papua

From Our Own Correspondent.

Port Moresby, August 24.

T'kß. F. W. CLEMENTS, on the staff of the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at the Sydney Uni versity, who left in June for the Mekeo district, with Mr. K. Clinton, a biological chemist, to make a survey of health conditions as affected by various altitudes in one district in Papua, returned to Port Moresby on August 2, after travelling from the coastlands by Yule Island to the high mountain ranges of the Goilala country at 9,000 ft.

Throughout his journey inland, he made an exhaustive survey of the different health conditions of each group he en countered as affected by diet, altitude, and ruling living and social conditions.

He was impressed by the large numbers of healthy sturdy men and women en countered in the Mekeo district, where apparently there was abundance of food.

On his return to Port Moresby, Dr.

Clements made a medical inspection of the large group of villages near the capital, and the reports of his tests for the various diseases to which natives are prone after contact with European civili sation extending over many years, should be of interest to those making a study of tropical medicines.

The investigators left Papua for Aus tralia by the Macdhui on August 23. Dr.

Clements intends to return next year to make a survey of the health conditions of the Purari Delta, where a large popu lation live along the mud banks of the labyrinth of waterways which form the mouths of the Purari.