EDUCATION AND HEALTH

Evening Post, Volume XCIX, Issue 33, 9 February 1920, Page 6

EDUCATION AND HEALTH

Education in public health questions begins, of course, in the schools; and there are many truths connected with the physical welfare of mankind that, in these days, every school-child knows. But education, foi the normal person, continues throughout life. Its chief delect is that when school days are past, it is in most cases unsystematic and even accidental. Men and women learivmore from bitt-er experience than.as the result of a deliberate search after knowledge, though many publicists and most newspapers readily do their best to act as leaders. When policies, economic or otherwise, are under discussion, the paths of what passes for truth diverge in various directions, according to the viewy point of the guiding mind; but where the public health is concerned, until one reaches the disputed realms of the higher branches, the way is plain. There is no divergence anywhere from the doctrine that a- community should be sound, reproductive, physically and mentally comfortable, and,free to the utmost possible extent from disease. Any committee of medical experts, and almost any group of commonsense men and women, could draw up a statement of no great length and perfectly understandable by the multitude of rules that, effectively observed by the people at large, would lead them very far towards that simple ■ ideal of welfare: The work has, in fact, been done. repeatedly; such statements are available to all. The problem is to get them read and followed. Whatever agency undertakes the duty of educating the public must be imbued with an unfailing energy and enthusiasm. This country can point to one magnificent example of such a teacher —Dr. Truby King. There are plenty of people in the/ world who pursue false ideals with unrelenting vigour. It is comparatively rarely that a man drives throughout a country, practically by his own energy, a campaign of enlightenment like that of Dr. King. He attacked the problem of babysaving at the root, taught, motherhood, where it was in error, and stands to-day as one of the foremost, if not the foremost, of the world's successful workers in this sphere oi: benefaction. Hia work was purely educational. A medical practitioner, who was interviewed the other day by The Post on the subject, pointed not only, tc the work of Dr. Truby King, but to the extraordinary results of medical propaganda, in the army during the war; and earlier than tho war, to the results of education in reducing the mortality from tuberculosis. Tho system of medical inspection in schools is another case in point. Today in England there is in progress an active campaign designed to educate the public concerning venereal diseases—the worst plague that afflicts civilised man; and there can be little doubt that the tearing down of the veil which misguided prudery has so long spread over that evil will before long have great and good results. In New Zealand there is much room for education in matters of public health. In comparison with the vastness of the objective, only a little has been done. The healing of the sick is the business oi doctors; but the public health is not a matter of healing the sick; it is a matter of keeping people well. And the doctor, the public are liable to assume, is not particularly concerned with that.. Indeed, the more successful he is in keeping people well, the less he is likely to succeed, in the worldly sense, as a doctor. That the basis of a doctor's interest in Ms patient should be reversed is, of course, a very ancient idea; and it is difficult to see how it can be done. But no one can suggest that the medical profession is primarily concerned with its worldly success; and it constitutes,' in fact, an army whose chief enemy is the array of preventable diseases, especially epidemics, which in addition to damaging tho community as a wholei wages, by its occupation of the medical man's time and energy, a constant and often very serious offensive against the general progress of medical science. Perfect health in the community means the extinction of the medical profession; -and it goes without saying that no profession in the .world would sooner see itself die from such a cause. When it is a question of keeping the community well, rather than of curing individuals, the strongest force is not the doctor's skill, or the rows of bottles in the chemist's shop; it is the behaviour of the people, guided by such wisdom as is made available to them through suitable channels. Much has been done in educating the. public as to influenza; but it is obvious from many circumstances that much remains to be done even on that subject, or there would be far fewer cases of people endangering their fellows by remaining at work after being attacked, and of others refusing to help the sick for fear of being infected themselves.

The medical practitioner already mentioned has made a strong plea for a specific attack on popular ignorance regarding the prevention of disease. He says: I maintain strongly that the press, if it will act in co-operation, with tho Health Department or a medical advisory board for the purpose of educating the public, can do more to reduce mortality than anything or anybody else. It is education that the people need; education on our most important asset, namely, our national health. Sqmo people think that the result of such educating would bo fear among tho general public. Well, only by realising thn position, and through fear very often, will people take tho precautions they should. Tho policy of reassuring everyone until disease has a thorough grip is I So far.aa this is a challenge to the press

to accept a share in a national work of the utmost ' importance, we respond gladly. The matter is one for organisation on a large scale, and we have no dGtibt that the Public Health Department, whose duty is clearly along the lines indicated, will have no hesitation in going straight ahead.