Report of Representative on Medical Research Council

For the financial year ended March, 1956, a budget of about £68,000 was authorised, of which about 56% represents salaries, under 4% administrative expenses, 35% equipment and sundries, and 5% research grants.

A gradual uplifting of salaries has been found possible over the past five years; the scales for research officers now being between £771 and £2,021 for medically qualified, and between £536 and £1,511 for non-medically qualified graduates.

Research continues to be prosecuted vigorously, under the direction of research committees of the Council, in the following fields, all located within the Medical School in Dunedin:—Chest Diseases, Clinical Medicine, Endochrinology, Microbiology, Neurophysiology, Nutrition, Surgery and Toxicology. Similar activities in Obstetrics are located mainly in Auckland, with minor projects also in Wellington and Dunedin Dental research is carried out in Dunedin (at the Dental School) and also in the field.

Some three dozen papers have been published in various professional journals during the year, and a number of reports has been issued, notably an extensive one on an Epidemiological and Racial Study of Dental Caries in New Zealand, based on several years' work by a dental research officer of the Council.

The main Island Territories research activities for the year have centred around working up the material brought back from the expedition to Western Samoa and from earlier expeditions to other S.W. Pacific Islands.