ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the circumstances of medical work in Norway. Norway is a sparsely-populated country, and its people are relatively poor. All hospital provision is made by official authorities. Every district in Norway is provided with an official midwife as well as with an official medical attendant for the poor. In rural areas the selected midwives do most of the vaccination against smallpox. Compulsory sickness insurance is adopted for wage-earners and for non-manual workers earning less than 6,000 kroner a year. Altogether there are 754 kassen or insurance societies, besides thirty-eight private societies under Government inspection. There is no general system of home visitation of infants, except on the occurrence of an epidemic disease. Two national voluntary associations engage in antituberculosis work, including the establishment of tuberculosis dispensaries. The collation of the Norwegian statistics came under the central department of finance. The periodical statistical returns include venereal diseases, pleurisy and other respiratory diseases, influenza, acute gastroenteritis, and rheumatic fever.
