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material. It is important in animal experiments todistinguish mere survival of the organism at the siteof inoculation from the spread of infection to othertissues. In the Siam work it is claimed that a trueleprous infection has been produced in monkeys, andwe may therefore look forward to more extensive andcontrolled work on the treatment of the experimentaldisease with diphtheria toxoid and antitoxin. Therelationship of the mycobacteria to the corynebacteriasuggests that this line of treatment is not whollyempirical.

THE MEDICAL POOL

THE basic facts in the supply of medical personnelare given in the registers issued yearly by the GeneralMedical Council. The Medical and Dentists Regis-ters for 1940 tell a story that cannot be gainsaid ofthe recruitment of doctors and dentists for the nation.For many years we have published a graph of theannual increment, both of those starting on theirstudies and those newly qualified to practise. Thisgraph has been brought up to date and we have addeda graph of ’the growing size of the medical pool,plotted from the total number of names on the medicalregister on the first day of each year.The Medical Register 1940 contains 63,410 names,

2000 more than any previous year, and adequate, onemust hope, for the calls made upon medicine fromany source. The number of names added by registra-tion during the year 1939 is 2968, a figure quite with-out precedent and higher than the peak year of 1924 ;

1. Published for the General Medical Council by Constable andCo. Price 21s. and 12s. respectively.

but this will be the summit, especially as there is goodreason to believe that many who were expecting to

qualify leisurely in 1940 made an attempt to do so

in 1939-an attempt which was patriotic even if notalways successful. Of the 2968 names 1437 were

registered in England, 692 in Scotland and 356 in

Ireland, while 296 were added to the Colonial and187 to the Foreign list. The 1940 register, no doubtfor reasons of economy, has left out the usualsection of medical acts and regulations; for thisreason the 1939 register should not be lightly thrownaway.The Dentists Register 1940 contains 15,200 names,

nearly 500 more than last year and almost thatnumber more than ever before. This increase issubject to a deduction of names removed from theregister for failure to pay the annual retention fee, ofwhich the usual statistics were not available, owing towar conditions, when the register went to press. Only170 names were removed during 1939 on other grounds(all except two on evidence of death), and 210 nameswere restored. There was, however, a gratifyingexpansion of the ranks of the profession during theyear, for 418 persons were registered as graduates orlicentiates, a number which has not been equalledsince 1925. Apart from the revision of names, theonly important alteration in the register is thereminder under " Registration Fees " of the reductionin the normal retention fee to í2 during the war, andof the exemption from payment of the fee accordedto practitioners engaged in war service. This volumealso omits the text of the Dentists Acts and the regula-tions of the Dental Board. Perhaps the omission ofthe local list at the end will be felt more keenly, but

such a list must needs be misleadingat the present time.

ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON

FOOD POLICY

THE Select Committee on NationalExpenditure, whose report was dis-cussed in these columns on May 25(p. 971), recommended the setting upof an authoritative body of scientistsand practical men to work out a war-time food policy for the countrywhich would aim at providing an

adequate diet at the least possiblecost in shipping and foreign cur-

rency. The advisory body has nowbeen appointed as follows: SirWilliam Bragg, P.R.S. (chairman) ;Sir Alan Anderson, M.P. (deputy-chairman) ; Prof. A. W. Ashby, pro-fessor of agricultural economics,Aberystwyth; Prof. E. P. Cathcart,F.R.S., regius professor of physio-logy, Glasgow; Mr. Henry Clay,economic adviser to the Bank ofEngland; Prof. F. L. Engledow, pro-fessor of agriculture, Cambridge; Mr.W. Gavin, agricultural adviser tothe Ministry of Agriculture; SirEdward Mellanby. F.R.S., secretaryof the Medical Research Council;I Sir John Orr, F.R.S., director of theRowett Research Institute, Aber-deen ; Prof. J. A. Scott Watson,professor of rural economy, Oxford;Prof. D. I. S. Watson, F.R.S.(secretary), professor of zoologyand comparative anatomy, University

0 College, London.