INTERESTING HEALTH DISCOVERIES.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16113, 18 January 1918, Page 8

INTERESTING HEALTH DISCOVERIES.

« — ORIGIN AND TREATMENT OF DISEASE. (FROM Oim OWN CORRESPONDENT.) LONDON, November 20. _ Dr. Addison (Minister of Reconstruction) has come to the oonclusion that health is a very complex business. The time has passed when the people would be satisfied with a dose of medicme. Health consists of food, habit of life, Lours of work, to mention only a few points. There was no organised body to deal with, these tilings, but at the Ministry of Munitions he had set up a committee to investigate matters appertaining to health. Some interesting discoveries Jjad" maul tod. A set of women turning aluminium fuse tops were working 06 hours weekiy with an hourly oar-put- of 100; when doing 54.8 hours per wec-fc tiv- hourly output was 134; and: at 45.0 hours per week i t jumped up to 158. Theieforc it paid that factory to employ those v.;;inen only 45 hours a week, similarly, taking a set of boys boring top-caps —72 hours a -week resulted in an output of 'JOO per hour, 54 hours a week gave 1 117 per hour, and 119 resulted with a 53-bour week. A reduction of hours from 58 to 51 of men engaged on heavy work increased their hourly output from 100 to 139. Up to the present it had been nobody's business to find out those things as a whole. Health was power, und one of the vital matters after the war was to increase the productive power of the nation, and investigations of the kind were of a singularly important and fundamental character. Accurate information was necessary, and he was to try to get it. At the moment there were no fewer than 14 Government departments more or less concerned in matters relating to health, and there were 1800 local authorities «lso concerned in administration. 'A central health authority, if established, should be concerned with matters affecting diseases, their origin and their treatment, and housing was an essentia! detail. -