THE PUBLIC HEALTH.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 53, 4 March 1925, Page 4

THE PUBLIC HEALTH.

It seems advisable to correct the common belief that infantile paralysis now epidemic—is a new disease, or at least unusual in this country. The Assistant-Director-General of Health, speaking of the health report for 1924, says: "The year (except for the epidemic commencing November last) was uneventful," yet in the report no fewer than 73 cases of infantile paralysis are included, and there was an average of 88 cases during the four-year period 1919-1923. It is impossible to estimate the number of mild cases which escaped notification, but allowing for untreated cases and those too mild to attract attention, a conservative estimate might bring the total up to 200 or more for the year 1924. Notifications invari-

ably increase when special attention is directed to the prevalence of any specific disease, so that the returns for 1925 may be very far above the average, yet must be considered as including many mild cases, which would otherwise have escaped Teeord. As to treatment of poliomyelitis, no report as to the success of the serum method can yet be issued, but a death rate of over 20 per cent amongst patients most favourably placed for efficient supervision doee not encourage the public to place much faith in it. "The best residential areas of the city have fared the worst," says the local Health DeJJaVtment report on itie present epidemic, "and the-most

congested have been least affected." There is a selective peculiarity about the micro-organism which may, in itself, provide a partial solution of its destruction if not of its origin. It is an unkind jibe to say that "rese-arch itself is suffering from a form of paralysis." There is another item in the report for 1924 worthy of attention. Puerperal fever cases increased from a yearly average of 164 to 307 in 1924, and this in what th* Statistician has called an '"uneventful year." We must be duly grateful that the general death rate for the year is estimated at below 8.5. ■which is extraordinarily low. It is to be remembered that the influx of a number of hardy immigrants, mostly young and in sound health, affects the year's records favourably.