BROKEN IN HEALTH

Evening Post, Volume XCV, Issue 15, 17 January 1918, Page 6

BROKEN IN HEALTH

A significant statement is made by the; Minister for Public Health, the Hon. G. ,W.. Russell, relative to the increase of tuberculosis cases in New Zealand. Compared with those notified during. 1916, those of 1917 number 1521—an increase of 571. The Minister attributed this grave increase in such cases to.returned soldiers, many of whom, he regretted to say, exhibited tuberculous tendencies after they, returned to their native country. They may have left New Zealand in the best of condition and sound in every respect, and returned hopeless wrecks, yet without a wound or scar of a wound, so severe are the hardships to which the war has subjected 1 them. The neurologist, too, will .find plenty to do in repairing ■ shattered nerves, and the mental specialist will likewise have his hands full; and yet not ono of their soldier-patients necessarily bo maimed. The case of the tuberculous soldier is pathetic in the", extreme. It may be that he deserves more help, more pity, more sympathy than the soldier who has lost a limb but is otherwise well. And yet both owe their conditions to the same cause, namely, the self-sacrificing response to the call of duty. Mental and nerve cases, and^ those where destruction of tissue has been, wrought by gas and other- causes, may incapacitate men far more than the loss, of an arm or a leg, but 'they are not so spectacular. In the case.of the tuberculous soldier, the Minister assures us that "the Health De-

partment is keenly watching developments in this direction." When the time is propitious, the Minister will no doubt take the public into his confidence as to what policy ;s to be pursued with respect to the treatment, not only of tuberculous soldiers who owe their condifion to active service, but also mental and nerve cases.