The community needs to be heavily involved in the health care of its own children. This will be possible only when the community is helped to identify the problems of its children and how these can be met. Overcoming malnutrition will be a high priority. This can be most effectively achieved by supervising adequate growth in each individual child through the use of simple mass charts. The use of these charts will allow the general state of the nutrition in each district to be monitored. Within

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... ach village or hamlet there needs to be someone trained in the simple management of diarrhoea and respiratory infections. With our new understanding of effective methods of oral rehydration, this can be undertaken within the home. Management of respiratory infections will need the identification of acute respiratory infections and their treatment with simple drugs, which may be available locally. Although there are now many satisfactory immunizing agents, we still do not know enough to get these agents effectively to the child who lives under adverse climatic conditions. The provision of an adequate birth in terval is for the paediatrician a natural and important step towards limi tation of too rapid population growth. If the mother has an adequate interval between the births of her children, then the possibility exists for her to provide a stimulating environment for them. In most rural areas of the world, many resources are likely to be limited for the foreseeable future. However, the involvement of the masses of the people, and particularly the development of the village or part-time health worker, offers great promise in providing the health care which is so much needed within the community.