Become Surgeons

To Help Savages

Add a MacGregor Memorial Wing to Suva Medical School for New Guinea Natives.

JI/HY not a Sir William MacGregor wing for the Suva Medical School for use by students from Papua and New Guinea?

The idea—and a worthy one— comes from Mrs. Alice Allen Innes in one of a series of broadcast talks she is doing for the ABC.

Few people remember —if they ever

knew—that Sir William MacGregor (then Dr.) , was chief of medical ser vices in Fiji before he . became Ad ministrator of British New Guinea (now called Papua) in 1888. Even fewer know that it was he who laid the foundations upon which was

built, later, the now-famous medical

school for native practitioners in Suva.

This is how Mrs. Innes describes it: DR. MacGREGOR, as chief medical officer of the Colony, had to face the fact that Europe and Asia has been swept by a smallpox epidemic and that if Fiji could not hastily take pre cautions. that Colony would suffer a like fate.

He took unorthodox means to prepare against it. He called together the young native chiefs and students at the mis sions, tried to explain vaccination and appealed to them to help him.

He found interest and response to his patience and confidence and a natural flair for the alleviation of suffering.

Thus °rew the idea of a native medi cal school in which were enrolled, as the first pupils, his own helpers. In 1914, when I was nursing in Suva, the grand sons of those original medical assistants were in training.

Now I am hoping to hear that Papua and New Guinea will be able —perhaps through the good work of mission bodies —to select suitable natives for training in Fiji. I doubt whether local dabbling efforts in New Guinea itself would be wise. Suva Native Medical School has the tradition, the right teachers, the quarters, the atmosphere—and the under standing of native limitations.

If a Sir William MacGregor could be added to the present establishment bv the Commonwealth Government, or from funds subscribed by the general public, we would have a worthy tribute to the man who founded the Native Medical School in Fiji and who later, when he became Administrator of Papua, laid down the native policv that was to be come a pattern for others to follow.

Surely his wise and splendid work that linked the South Pacific in this wav merits a memorial! And what more fit ting way is there than in expanding the great gospel of healing?

The name of a Rabaul man who was lost in the Pacific war, but which has riot appeared in Pacific Islands casualty lists, is that of Lieutenant Norman Wheeler, who was a chemist in Rabaul, and a well-known resident. He came to Australia, enlisted in the AIF, was posted eventually to the hospital ship “Centaur,” and lost his life when the “Centaur” was torpedoed off the coast of Australia.