A LEAD IN HEALTH.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 29, 4 February 1928, Page 6 (Supplement)

A LEAD IN HEALTH.

WHY NOT ORGANISE 7

WE CAW DO IT.

(By PERITUS.)

England, with its National Health. Insurance for 14,000,000 people, gives us a lead. As Sir George Newman pointed oufc in a lecture, this is one of the great influences tending to bring the doctor into a scheme of health-pro-motion. ■ He points out, too, that private s practitioners' are co-operating ' with health; officials' in numerous services' in England. There are 1450 officers _of health, of whom 1100 are private doctors, there are 1800 school medical officers, of whom 1000 are in private practice. These arrangements, says Sir George, "enable the practitioner to interpret purpose of preventive medicine <>£ot merely as the negation of disease, but as attaining the highest possible standard of personal health, resistance and capacity of body and mind." New Zealand is behindhand in this sphere. (Quoted from the Waikato "Times. ) Forty years ago Cornwall as a holiday resort was visited by a Belect .few. These visitors reported that the climatc, scenery, food, and amusements were all good, put : that most towns: and villages were insanitary and infectious disease too common and too lightly regarded. — . Enlisting the Profession. An architect, by name Sylvanus Travail—now many years dead—who was anxious to forward the prosperity of 1 his county, worked out a scheme by which every private medical practitioner .was rlmost forced into the sanitary service. From the Truro Council offices he issued a batch of forms each quarter, addressing one to every medical -man throughout the county. Each form contained a list of towns and villages, and the names of the doctors in each. There were ruled columns for entries, including infectious diseases, nuisances suppressed, condition of water supply and drainage, births, deaths (tabulated and causes stated) and so on. When ,the following quarter's form was issued the name of the villages having the least favourable reports.for the preceding quarter were printed in heavy black type. A graph recording the improvement;; ,or otherwise of health and sanitation throughout the .county was overprinted in red upon every form. By arrangement with the leading Cornish newspapers, these reports were published, with the result that each doctor whose .village': appeared "black" found that it was >yoided >by visitors (which \ sometimes involved 1 financial, loss) and : not only this, "but it. seemed to the public that the-local doctor was directly!?,responsible for.; neglected sanitation and infectious disease in his particular district. A t few doctors of the better type entered heartily into this competition, and quarter by quarter the red graph ; improved, and the indifferent practi* ; tioners received special visits from sani- ■ . inspectors from Truro who came toi discover the conditions and prepare reports. I think Travail printed the names of neglectful doctors in special type'to indicate that they were not in favour of 'his-; scheme, but one by one they were driven into line, and the whole county had rea'son to be grateful to the architect-mayor, who: defied his council (which grumbled at the expense) for the good of his county* Methods of Prevention; I can see no reason why thid or'. a similar scheme should not be adopted in New Zealand. It is probable that- the prevailing commercial spirit would rear - its head and the doctors would demand a fee for filling and posting the quarterly form. The methods of disease prevention are -not now limited to securing water purity, clean milk, cowsheds, dairies, stables and hotels and private : -'premises, asj they were forty years ago, and the mere filling up of a form to notify infectious diseases (at 3/6 per form), as is'done here to-day, provides information without - improvements of any necessarily attempted prevention. The expense of making each and every doctor a : salaried official of the Health .Department is not beyond reason, but it is beyond one's idea of medical altruism. The horrible thought that your doctor may wish you to be si<sk haß, of loomed lalge and fearsome in most lay minds, and our present system of State medical subsidy, added to local contributions, could be extended to reward .the men who had confxol of the cleanest, . healthiest districts. This would be no premium on idleqpss; for keeping people ' healthy is as arduous as attending them 1 when sick, although less unpleasant.

I have never been in favour of wholesale inoculation of children at times when no disease is threatening to spread, because, to be consistent; one would have to inoculate for live or six or more diseases common to our earlier years, and, at the best, the idea is not without j repulsion and the process not without risk.

? thßr than socially tlie medical practitioner is never a popular man. He is a little more welcome than the undertaker and a little less welcome than the gas company collector-meter-reader, and SKI °t i?- q S al with the fire +i?- f!, also sometimes saves something), J»ut he should be regarded as a permanent ally, of the Health Department- and general inspector, not only :of the schools but also of adults;^ with power to direct and control all industries affecting health; examiner | of water, milk and foodstuffs; guardian of the people's welfare; and, in the case of need, repairer and restorer of minds and bodies when unavoidable illness or results of accidents make such services necessary. .The constant extension of hospital facilities, out of proportion to increase of population, is not a sign of general poverty, nor of general physical deterioration, but more an evidence, of the belief in this, *hat hospital' offers an escape from heavy fees, and joins nursing, medical treatment, board and lodging under one head. -Like the big school, the big hospital is apt to offer more of chances than certainty, but we are a" sporting people and put our bodies out with the same confidence as our money on the totalisator—and await tha dividend!