534

providing reciprocal health care for British and Sovietcitizens while visiting each other’s country, the agreementprovides for the development and widening of cooperationin medicine and health through exchanges, visits, jointstudies, and other contacts. Joint research will be under-taken into selected areas such as the control and surveillanceof influenza and other communicable diseases, ophthalmicdiseases, and the provision of medical care, including thatneeded in traumatic and cardiac emergencies. Cooperationwill also be developed through contact between specialists,and exchanges of information on new equipment, pharma-ceutical products, and technological developments in thehealth field. Under the agreement the knowledge andexperience gained by both countries will be made availableto international medical organisations, particularly theWorld Health Organisation. United Kingdom citizens inthe U.S.S.R. needing immediate medical treatment willreceive it on the same basis as Soviet citizens-that is, freeof charge. (In 1973 there were about 50,000 U.K. visitorsto the U.S.S.R.) The agreement also contains a specialprovision whereby a patient may travel from one countryto the other for a specific course of treatment.

INTERNATIONAL REGISTRY OF ABNORMALKARYOTYPES

A COMPUTERISED registry of abnormal karyotypes hasbeen set up in the division of medical genetics of the JohnsHopkins University School of Medicine, under the direc-tion of Dr D. S. Borgaonkar. * The registry is to be developedas an international repository of information on all typesof structural chromosome aberrations, and descriptions ofabnormalities submitted should include, if possible, detailsof regions and bands affected. Print-outs should be avail-able two or three times a year at cost. It is hoped that thesystem could also be used to catalogue X-chromosomebreak-points in mammalian species other than man, andto list abnormal karyotypes for species-such as the mouse-for which chromosome regions have been well defined.

Maternity AllowanceThe Department of Health and Social Security has

announced that women expecting babies after July 13 willbe able to qualify for maternity allowance by counting thenew earnings-related national insurance contributionswhich come into operation on April 6; previously only thepresent flat-rate contributions could be taken into account.The new conditions will be of benefit to expectant motherswho have not paid sufficient contributions in the year up toApril; the maternity allowance will be worth up to E19.17a week, including earnings-related supplement. A revisedversion of the maternity benefit leaflet (NI 17A), explaininghow the changes will work, will be issued in April.

Medical Audiotape Slide Producers’ AssociationThis Association (MASPA) was formed last year to

bring together tape-slide producers in medical schools sothat they could make use of one another’s material andexchange experiences. The facilities of the MedicalRecording Service Foundation (a non-profit-makingorganisation which is partly supported by grants from theDepartment of Health and Social Security) have beenput at the group’s disposal, and anyone wishing to jointhe group should write to Dr Valerie Graves of the Founda-tion at Kitts Croft, Writtle, Chelmsford CM1 3EH.

Division of Medical Genetics, Department of Medicine, Johns HopkinsUniversity, 826 Traylor Building, Baltimore, Maryland 21205.

t

University of LondonThe title of reader in immunopathology has been con-

ferred on Dr Sidney Leibowitz in respect of his post atGuy’s Hospital Medical School.

World Health OrganisationThe Executive Board has recommended a W.H.O.

budget of S131,885,000 for the year 1976.

Diary of the Week

MAR. 2 TO 8

Tuesday, 4thROYAL ARMY MEDICAL COLLEGE, Millbank, London SW1

5 P.M. Dr T. A. Kemp: Health in the Medical Student.LONDON MEDICAL GROUP

5.45 P.M. (St. Mary’s Hospital Medical School.) MetropolitanAnthony of Sourozh, M.D.: Preparation for Death.

Wednesday, 5thROYAL POSTGRADUATE MEDICAL SCHOOL, Hammersmith Hospital,

London W12 OHS2 P.M. Prof. P. J. Watt: Current Problems in Gonococcal Infection.

CARDIOTHORACIC INSTITUTE, Fulham Road, Brompton, London SW36HP

5 P.M. Dr M. E. Horn: Asthma, Bronchitis, and Allergy in Children.INSTITUTE OF DERMATOLOGY, St. John’s Hospital for Diseases of the

Skin, Lisle Street, Leicester Square, London WC2H 7BJ4.30 P.M. Dr P. W. M. Copeman: Cutaneous Vasculitis.

INSTITUTE OF PSYCHIATRY, de Crespigny Park, Denmark Hill, LondonSE5 8AF

5.30 P.M. Dr David Shaffer: Bedwetting-Biological and PsychologicalAspects.

INSTITUTE OF UROLOGY, 172 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2H 8JE6 P.M. Prof. J. P. Blandy: Tumours of the Testis.

MANCHESTER MEDICAL SOCIETY5 P.M. (New Medical School.) Mr P. M. Stell: Reconstruction in

Head and Neck Cancer. Dr J. C. Woodrow: A FamilyDetective Story-HL-A-associated Diseases. (Joint meetingwith the Liverpool Medical Institution.)

UNIVERSITY OF DUNDEE1.30 P.M. (Ninewells Hospital.) Prof. Margaret E. Turner-Warwick:

Preliminary Ideas on Protective Immunity.

Thursday, 6thROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS OF ENGLAND, Lincoln’s Inn Fields,

London WC2A 3PN5.30 P.M. Mr R. J. Bennett: The Discipline of Tympanoplasty-the

Pathological Basis.UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

5.30 P.M. (Institute of Neurology.) Prof. A. G. M. Weddell: SomeAspects of the Functional Anatomy of Mammalian PeripheralNerves.

BRITISH ACADEMY OF FORENSIC SCIENCES, London Hospital MedicalCollege, Turner Street, London El 2AD

6 P.M. Dr J. J. Gayford: Battered Wives.LONDON MEDICAL GROUP

5.45 P.M. (St. Thomas’s Hospital.) Dr Richard Fox: Suicide-MedicalCare or Social Prevention.

MEDICO-CHIRURGICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH8 P.M. (Western General Hospital.) Mr E. R. Hitchcock: A Different

Sort of Surgeon.

Friday, 7thROYAL POSTGRADUATE MEDICAL SCHOOL

11 A.M. Mr Stell: The Philosophy of Worthwhile Surgery.INSTITUTE OF NEUROLOGY, National Hospital, Queen Square, London

WC1N 3BG1.15 P.M. Dr Dietmar Biesold (Liepzig): Wilson’s Disease.

ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS OF EDINBURGH, EH8 9DW4.30 P.M. Mr Martin Fallon: Abraham Colles of Dublin and Edin-

burgh. (Douglas Guthrie lecture.)

Saturday,8thMEDICAL ASSOCIATION FOR PREVENTION OF WAR

10 A.M. (Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1.) DrBromley Kniveton, Mr Peter Cooper, Dr Mary Lindsay:Aggression on Children.

2 P.M. Mr Norman Schofield, Mr Tony Smythe, Dr Michael Nichol-son : Who Keeps the Peace-the Government or the People ?