NATION'S INCUBUS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 171, 21 July 1928, Page 10 (Supplement)

NATION'S INCUBUS.

WHAT RHEUMATISM COSTS. £12.000.000 lost in wags?. £•">.000.000 paid to doctors. Five and a-half million working weeks lost. Surli is the nation"? annual debit account through rheumatism. The figures (given by Sir Walter Kinnear. of the Ministry of ITealtli, at a conference at Bath) were the more alarming, as they applied to insured wage-owners only, and took no account of chronic heart disease, of which at least one-half is rheumatic in origin. Thousands Crippled. Of the total period during which ill- ' ne>s benefit was paid under the Heal tit j Insurance scheme, one-sixth in the case , of men. and one-seventh in the case ot i women, was due to rheumatic diseases. ! Sir George Newman, Chief Medical ; Officer of the Ministry, said: "Chronic j forms of the disease are crippling many j hundreds of thousands of our people, who J are subjected to suffering and disable- \ ment and losing time and money every I year. It is a drag on industry, an evil | incubus on thr worker, a source of finan- j cial loss to tlie State, and a cause of excessive mortality and ill-health." ! Doctors Differ. ; The difficulties of the medical profes- j sion were that they did not know the ' real cause of the disease or the relation j between the various forms of it, and j they differed about methods of treat- j ment. They knew it started at school ! age. and therefore it was at school age j that they must start exploring and pre- : venting it. Adults should seek medical advice | immediately signs of rheumatism showed ; themselves. i