MEDICAL FASHIONS

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 292, 10 December 1929, Page 6

MEDICAL FASHIONS

Mr. Clement Wragge, the meteorologist, told us during his life that our climate varied in cycles of five years. This seems to apply to medical fashions. Twenty years ago a general topic of conversation was the alarming amount of dental disease,amongst our people and innumerable diseases were attributed to it. Fifteen years ago goitre was in popular favour and everybody was busy with tape measures around the neck and talking.of iodine, water and soils. Five years later consumption came 1 to' the : front. Men and. women with. delicate complexions and a cough were, given a wide bertlr, all milk was "sealed" or boiled, and anyone who spat wa.s in danger of a fine. Then followed cancer, and there was something very like a panic, everybody hunting over their own body for "lumps." The smallpox scare was quickly over. The appendix trouble has lasted since King Edward's day and. is still going strong. Meanwhile the Government Statistician has for all the twenty years tried to draw attention to the fact that heart disease is the chief cause of death, is first on his- list and is generally ascribed to rheumatism, recognised or unreeog--1 nised, at some period of life, from "growing pains" of childhood to "chill" and aches and pains of adult age. Surely a disease which tops the' list of causes of death should be chosen for the next, five-year period. It is quite remarkable it has been neglected so long,. Of course there is no operation for ordinary rheumatism, although spikey joints (rheumatoid) can be chiselled and polished and made, to work without the annoying crackle which accompanies such movement as is possible. An attempt has already been made to coax the population to submit to a "regular" medical examination (the oftener the better), but "this bird does not sing" very successfully because there is 110 threat of imminent death in the song, and as long as the people feel well and can eat and drink and dance and wink'now! and again at one of the opposite sex, ; they • the doctor and spend the money 011 something else. "Anticipating evil mars the gbod which may impend", and to worry about, any disease for five years, only to exchange it for another as the fashion changes, is neither wisdom nor common sense nor plain, simple human reason nor instinct, ; . H.A.Y.