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training. Medical men who gave evidence agreed thatopticians should know as much as possible about therecognition -<ME ocular abnormalities, but urged that itwas not in the public interest that opticians should bestatutorily recognised as being able to detect abnor-malities.The problem of what registration should imply also

came up when the committee considered the practice oforthoptics and the fitting of contact lenses. In the faceof somewhat inconclusive evidence it proposed that thenew council should register approved diplomas in thesespecialties as postgraduate qualifications. Medical and

optician witnesses also disagreed whether opticians shoulduse drugs in refraction. In the medical view there is a

possible danger of precipitating glaucoma by the inju-dicious use of mydriatics. The committee cautiouslysuggests that only opticians who satisfy the G.O.C. thatthey are competent to use drugs should be allowed todo so ; and it further recommends that as one of itsfirst tasks the new council, in consulta,tion with thehealth departments, should draw up a list of the drugsthat opticians may use.The committee point out that the best way to secure

healthy cooperation is to make clear to the public howthe responsibility for the care of their eyes is sharedby ophthalmologist, general practitioner, ophthalmicoptician, and dispensing optician.

PREVENTION OF WARA CONFERENCE organised by the Medical Association

for the Prevention of War was held in London on

May 10 and 11.MISUSE OF SCIENCE

Prof. F. G. GREGORY, F.R.S., spoke of the responsibilitiesof the scientist faced with the increasing adaptation ofhis work for the purposes of war. It was no longerpossible for the scientist to be content with the pursuitof knowledge, leaving its application to others. Thebarriers which were springing up everywhere, preventingfree access to scientific ideas and information, were aserious menace to the scientific temper. The growingdemand for secrecy from official quarters was a threatto scientific advance, and was responsible for the increas-ing suspicion and hostility of the public towards scienceand scientists. At all costs the universities should opposesecrecy in scientific work. Scientists had the best ofreasons for objecting to the application of science towarfare and preparations for warfare. Such work was

highly unproductive, thankless, and fruitless ; in a wordit was inefficient and hence opposed to the highest objectsof scientific endeavour.

BIOLOGICAL WARFARE

Dr. J. H. HUMPHREY pointed out that it was impossibleto draw any hard-and-fast line between offensive anddefensive preparations for bacteriological warfare, or

even between work which was specifically war workand that which was part of the general pursuit of scientificand public-health problems. Discoveries which weremade for the purpose of conquering human disease couldbe adapted to spread disease.Dr. M. R. POLLOCK felt that the problem of bacterio-

logical warfare was an ethical one. It involved theperversion of medical science, which in the past had beenused only for the relief of suffering. He outlined theproposals embodied in a resolution adopted by theFourth International Congress of Microbiology at Copen-hagen in 1947 ; this called on medical men and women toabstain from taking part in developing bacteriologicaltechnique as a weapon of war, to open all microbiologicalresearch institutes to international inspection, and toabrogate secrecy in the publication of such research.

PSYCHOLOGY OF WAR PREPARATION

Mr. J. C. FLUGEL, D.SC., suggested that it was the respon-sibilitv of the medical profession to make the facts ofwar psychology more widely known-for instance, themerging of the individual conscience into the collectiveconscience, and the search for scapegoats. Doctors should

protest on ethical grounds about the use of medical

knowledge for purposes of destruction. It was necessarythat national loyalties should be superseded by world-wide loyalties, so that nations could cooperate in solvingthe vast global problems of malnutrition, overcrowding,and the control of epidemic disease.

Prof. L. S. PENROSE examined the question of how farwar was a pathological phenomenon. War was a com-

plicated mental disturbance affecting communities ;since it was a disease it should be studied and treated assuch. To the individual, on the other hand, war mightbring certain advantages ; part of the task facing us wasto provide peace-time equivalents for these.

Dr. ALEX COMFORT held that war was one of the fewactivities today that instilled a sense of common purpose.Individual values became perverted, so that atrocitieswhich no-one would normally think of performingbecame permissible when done on the orders of somehigher authority. Mass executions and the like probablyoriginated as fantasies in the minds of a few people inpositions of command.

Dr. B. H. KIRMAN spoke of the danger to children andyoung people of the conditioning effect of lurid films andcomic papers. Large numbers of people in this and othercountries were being conditioned for war by mediafor so-called entertainment.

Dr. MILDRED CREAK, while agreeing that the incidenceof neurosis in adults diminished in war-time, felt thatthe impact of war on young children was at the veryleast confusing and perplexing. - We had yet to see whatsort of parents those who were children in the late warwould develop into. On the other hand, peace imposeddisciplines no less than war.

THE DOCTOR’S PART

In the final session Dr. DuNCAN LEYS discussed theethical basis of the recent Declaration of Geneva, andcontrasted it with the Hippocratic Oath. Among theobjects of the association were the following : to opposethe use of medical science for any purpose other than the

preservation of life and the relief of suffering ; and to

urge that energy and money spent in preparation forwar should be directed into the fight against diseaseand malnutrition. The Geneva Declaration stated :" I will not permit considerations of nationality, race,party politics or social standing to intervene betweenmy duty and my patient." This was an immenselyvaluable addition to the traditional medical ethic. Butthe great pioneers of social medicine realised that itwas no longer sufficient for a doctor to take a purelypersonal and individual view of his obligation to society.There was nothing in the Declaration to indicate thatdoctors must look beyond the individual patient and hisimmediate illness, and must work to create the conditionsof civilisation which alone can create health. Evilswhich attacked civilisation from within were as muchthe cause of injury, death, and disease as bacteria andcancer. The ethical principles of medicine should bere-stated in such a way as to proclaim the doctor’s dutyto think and act in terms of social as well as of individualneeds, and when this was done it would be evident thatwar and the preparation for war were as directly theconcern of the medical profession as the control oftuberculosis or the elimination of the diseases of

deprivation. _