(from page 131) later as a basis for a 'newsletter' to bring all honorary medical advisers up to date with current problems. The subjects have included such items as lifelines, retrieving casualties from the water, communications and hypothermia. One of the meetings discussed and stressed the importance of honorary medical advisers being in close touch with the crews and attending exercises. Divisional inspectors of lifeboats have been asked to encourage this practice, but probably it is even more important for station honorary secretaries to tell the doctor well in advance of arranged exercises.

The newsletter was also used to explain why certificated first aiders in conventional lifeboats were given a nominal proficiency payment to which members of ILB crews were not entitled, and it seems worthwhile to repeat the explanation here: (i) A first aider in the ILB is unlikely to have charge of a casualty for longer than one hour, probably very much less, and further medical assistance is often available. In contrast, the first aider in the conventional boat may have responsibilities for casualties for some hours without the possibility of obtaining any assistance, (ii) Conditions in an ILB are so restricting that little first aid is possible beyond resuscitation and careful handling.

(iii) It is a desirable, but not always attainable, principle that all ILB crew members should be interchangeable and all equally trained in their skills. Some first aid knowledge is essential for an ILB crew member, and of course the more the better, but first aid specialists, in ILB crews, would not improve the over-all service.

As reported in the autumn issue of THE LIFEBOAT, the writer of this article collaborated with Surgeon Captain F. W. Baskerville in a paper entitled "The Origin and Work of the Medical and Survival Committee of the RNLI', which the Surgeon Captain, now chairman of the committee, presented at the International Lifeboat Conference in Helsinki last June. He also showed the films mentioned earlier and many items of equipment. This article, with the one which preceded it, covers much the same ground as that paper.

Finally, honorary medical advisers and first aiders throughout the Institution are to be congratulated on the work they do to provide a service unbeaten in any other lifeboat service in the world..