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49. He may have been a member of a fatigue party?—He was an ambulance man or a fatigue man. We found that there was no system whatever there. We went into the tea-kiosk, and there we saw a crowd of men about 220 or 230 in number. 50. In the tea-kiosk? —Yes; they were in the central compartment and all round the outside. 51. In the veranda also?— Yes; some of them were on stretchers, but most of them were lying on the floor. They were in their own clothes, and they had a blanket or two over them. I felt some of their clothes, and they were semi-damp. Quite a number of them had sore throats. 52. This was the influenza epidemic?— Yes; this was what the experts of the Defence Department called influenza and colds. Two-thirds of the men had sore throats. 53. Did you examine them?— Yes, 1 examined them, and looked at them. 54. That is, two-thirds of the 230: you must have examined 150? —No; I examined one here and there. It is not essential to look at, a man's throat to know if he has a sore throat. It would have taken me a long time to examine them all. 55. So two-thirds is simply an estimate?— Yes, it is my estimate. 56. How many did you examine?— About nine, in different parts of the kiosk. Others were vomiting. I saw the vomit beside the beds of some of them. 57. Dr. Martin.] You are sure of that? —Yes, and quite a number were retching. I should say they were nearly all coughing. I went thoroughly round through the whole lot of them. Some of them were deaf, and they told me they had had their ears syringed. Quite- a number of them had had wax in their ears. Some of them had boils about their ears. To show the crude conditions under which the doctor was attending them, I may say that Dr. Harrison was attending to one man, and he had with Him a tin pannikin with Jeyes' fluid in it, and he also had some cotton-wool. 58. Septic throats? —No, I did not see any treatment of them. That, man had a boil behind his ear. The doctor was carrying his disinfectant about in a pannikin. There was no sign there of water-bottles. 59. Mr. Ferguson.] They would be in the bed, would they not?—l would not say there was no sign of them unless 1 felt in the beds'. You do not. go by what you see: you go by what you fejel. I saw no signs either of bed-slippers or lavatory accommodation. There were no sheets and no pillow-slips. The whole position was chaos to my mind as a medical man. 60. Dr. Martin.] How long had the kiosk been occupied then?—l could not say, but they had been there some daj's. All the surrounding places were occupied. At that time they had started to try and separate the cases. 61. The Chairman.] Can you tell me the date upon which the kiosk was taken over? Mr. Skerrett,: Either the 22nd or 23rd June. Dr. Martin: They had been there five days then. Witness: Dr. Harrison and Dr. Ferguson were there. Well, then I paid special attention to the man who had been carried in by the stretcher-bearers unconscious. I found him. I was attracted to him by Dr. Ferguson roaring at him, and asking him if had any pain, who he was, and where he had come from. The doctor was yelling that out in a super-voice. When he had finished I went up to the man and found that he was semi-conscious. The higher brain was narcotized, but when I asked him to put his tongue out he did so. When I asked him if he had a headache he shook his head, indicating that he was too narcotized. I took his temperature with my own'thermometer, and it was 1036. As I stated to the gentleman who was with me, I conclucfed that that man had either typhoid fever, pneumonia, or cerebro-spinal meningitis. I did not give that as cerebro-spinal meningitis to the editor of the paper when I had the interview with him, for fear of alarming the people. I said, " acute infectious nervous affection." The patient died the next day. 62. The Chairman.] He died on the 29th?—Yes, it would be the 29th, Tuesday. The doctors could not apprehend that he was as ill as I thought he was. Evidently he was one of the first fatal cases of cerebro-spinal meningitis. Until then there had boen no direct technical process of diagnosis gone through. When I said in the House that they were cases of septic throats I was howled down by the Minister of Defence and his colleagues, and was unallowed to make a statement. Those throats should have had swabs taken of them, and the diagnosis made that was subsequently made. 63. Swabbed and cultivated?— Yes. When you make a swab you take a smear of the throat, put it in an antiseptic tube, send it to the bacteriologist, and he cultivates it. 64. Mr. Ferguson.] Had they the appliances there to do that?—l did not inquire from them. 65. They had not done it then, at any rate?—No, because they thought it was colds and influenza. 66. Do you know that they had not done it then?— The direct evidence is the statement made in the House by the Minister of Defence : he told me that they were suffering from colds and influenza. I said they were septic throats, and that the patients were dying of septic pneumonia. I want to say here, so that the public will know, that cerebro-spinal meningitis has been prevalent in England in the camps, and that the medical journals describing the treatment and symptoms and technique of the treatment have been in the hands of the medical practitioners in New Zealand for some months, and had the medical department at the camp been up to date the condition of the patients would have been recognized at least two months before it was. 67. Does that mean that it was there two months before? —Yes, in November or December. 68. Do you instance that by Rutherford's case? —Yes, and other cases of troopers who came o me in my consulting-room at Christchurch. 69. The Chairman.] The case of Frank Rutherford occurred in October, 1914, you say?— Yes, October, 1914. He was not one of my patients, but I can get a detailed history of his case if necessary.