Johann Christian Reil's training scheme for medical auxiliaries.

THE GREAT importance of medical auxiliaries in primary medical care and in community health schemes is now being increasingly recognized by those who are involved in the planning of health services for developed and developing countries alike. Schemes employing very large numbers of auxiliaries are already well established in Russia1 and in China.2 The major need for auxiliaries is, in the first place, in rural areas of developing countries.3 There is, however, also a growing interest in the extension of primary medical care by auxiliaries in countries where the problem seems to be more of maldistribution than of scarcity of medical personnel. A number of schemes are at present on trial in the U.S.A.4 In Canada a recently reported trial seems to have confirmed the practicability of a nurse-practitioner to provide first-contact primary clinical care.5 The Board of Science and Education of the British Medical Association in its report on primary health care teams came to the conclusion that trained nurses could take over certain defined areas of primary health care in developed countries. For developing countries it was suggested to establish a grade of medical assistant to "extend the physicians".6 Schemes for training auxiliaries to extend medical care in rural areas are by no means a new development. Linnaeus in 1751 suggested giving members of the rural clergy a short training in medicine, so that they could look after their parishioners' bodies as well as their souls.7 A scheme to encourage students of theology to attend