DEFY BOMBING

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXX, Issue 13622, 21 April 1942, Page 2

DEFY BOMBING

CHILDREN'S NERVES MAJOR MEDICAL DISCOVERY OF 1!>41 Doctors who had charge of London children during the blitz told me that the fortitude and endur-

ance of these youngsters under fire was the "major medical discovery of 1941." writes a reporter in the Overseas Daily Mail.

They were commenting on the statement of Dr. Allen Daley. L.C.C. Medical Officer of Health, who, in his annual report, says: "The unanimous opinion of doctors who had been working daily among the children was that they had stood up to the air raids as well as, or better than, the adults.' Experts told me last week that the greatest fortitude was shown by children under 14, and gave these reasons:

(1) Ignorance of the real dangers (2) The natural resilience of youth.. (3) The tough constitution of London's children. (4) Good food and good shelters. That goes for all the children who remained in London. Of the ISO,OOO children of school age in the Metropolis at the beginning of 1941, 85,000 were still there at the end of the year. The doctors told me that they had not heard of a single child having to receive special treatment for nervous breakdown due to air raids. i Never a Case Before the raids began, the Ministry of Health and the L.C.C. Public Health Department, anticipating that bombs would have disastrous results on the children's nerves, set up "psycho-therapy clinics" all over London. Specialists from all the leading hospitals were attached to them and stood by for duty every night throughout the air raids.

But none of these centres was ever used. They never had a case of "nervous shock" to deal with.

And one of the Ministry's own doctors told me: "The complete idleness of our clinics is amazing proof of the grand courage of London't courage when the bombs were falling. "Their grit was something beyond all our calculations. It was a highly pleasant surprise. "They were not only brave during the blitzes but showed no aftereffects at all. Teachers report that they invariably turned up at school at shelters as receptive and bright as in normal times. Vitamins Help

"They definitely had no fear. All that we noticed was a certain excitability when a bomb fell in their neighbourhood. It quickly passed off."

But doctors still do not want children to stay in London. There still remains the grave danger of physical injury. Ariother thing that has encouraged doctors is the good result of experiments in the vitamin content of food.

Medical men and scientists whose job is to help maintain Britain's fitness say that vitamins are helping towards victory.

Th.e recently doubling of the quantity of vitamin D in margarine —one ounce now contains more body-building vitamins than an average egg—is yet another development in the researches that are being made to fortify the nation's health.