INFANTILE PARALYSIS

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21972, 22 December 1936, Page 15

INFANTILE PARALYSIS

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PRESd Sir, —Is it not time the health authorities tQok steps to isolate Dunedin and prevent the scourge that is destroying children's lives coming to Christchurch. If the spineless attitude that is at present prevailing continues, we shall get the disease here before we know where we are. Dunedin residents will travel all over New Zealand for their holidays. I do not expect this letter to carry any weight. I have no handle to my name to carry weight, nor have I the golden god behind me to attract attention, but at least I can voice a i protest against the apathy not only of health officers but the mothers and lathers. I have not the slightest doubt that the English team in Australia is of far more interest to the latter; as for the former, they will still take their pleasure abroad not knowing or caring for the children. Some of these mothers should be arrested for cruelty. I saw one poor little mite of about three months old taken into town one day with nothing, not even a veil on its head, and that on a boiling hot summer's day, with that hot sun on its tender head and in its eyes. Was the woman trying to kill it or to make an idiot of it I wondered. An animal would know better, but the longer one , lives the more respect and liking one has for animals and less for human beings.—Yours, etc., GRANDMOTHER. December 21, 1936. TO T0» EDITOB or the rim. Sir—At this time of anxiety for mothers, I feel 1 should like to lot them know one or two things that may help to safeguard their children. A mother once told me she knew quite definitely her child (who was crippled for life) had contracted it through sitting bareheaded in the sun on the bare ground made damp by frost; and as the symptoms are exactly similar to severe sunstroke, I should say that the body under these conditions acts as a conductor of the sun's rays (as in electricity) If mothers would keep their children apart, and under observation, out of doors, but never bareheaded (helmet-shaped hats, lined with green, are ideal, as they protect the nape of the neck), and Instruct them not to sit on the bare ground, much suffering will be spared.—Yours, etc.. • MOTHER. December 20, 1936.