r payment or other reward the
treatment of any venereal disease, has, in the opinion of the
Commissioner of Police, proved beneficial in restricting the operation
of quacks, but he suggests that it should be amended by deleting the
words "for payment or reward," as it is sometimes easy to prove the
treatment and difficult to prove the payment, and it is the treatment by
unqualified persons that is aimed at.

Section 8, which makes it an offence knowingly to infect any person with
venereal disease, is practically inoperative, as will be shown later in
this report, owing to the extreme difficulty, in the absence of any
system of notification and compulsory treatment, of proving that the
offence was committed knowingly.

The Committee desire to draw attention to section 13. Herein is provided
towards hospital maintenance a higher subsidy for venereal patients than
is receivable for the maintenance of patients suffering from other
infectious diseases. They think that it is inadvisable to particularize
venereal sufferers, or, indeed, to draw any distinction between
different classes of diseases in a hospital, and that the ordinary
subsidy should be paid in all cases.

In this Act also is power to make regulations for the "classification,
treatment, control, and discipline of persons _detained_ in such
hospitals," but apparently, owing to the opposition to the almost
analagous provision in the Hospitals and Charitable Institutions Act,
1913, no such regulations have as yet been made.

PART II--PREVALENCE OF VENEREAL DISEASES IN NEW ZEALAND.

SECTION 1.--STATISTICAL.

(A.) _Medical Statistics._

The first item on the Committee's order of reference is "To inquire and
report, as to prevalence of venereal diseases in New Zealand."

One of the first matters which engaged the attention of the Committee
was the question how reliable information could be gathered which would
indicate the present prevalence of these diseases in this country.
Recognizing that it would be impossible to obtain trustworthy figures
without securing the widespread co-operation of the medical profession,
the Committee at an early stage sought and was readily given the help of
the British Medical Association in the matter. Representatives of the
Association gave their assistance in the preparation of a form to be
sent to and filled in by all practising members of the profession, and
in the current number of the _New Zealand Medical Journal_ a