THE HUMAN MACHINE

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 126, 24 November 1922, Page 5

THE HUMAN MACHINE

PERIODIC MEDICAL EXAMINA TION.

There are some diseases which from the beginning are characterised byacute and often alarming symptoms. Those who are stricken with these diseases do not need to be told that a medical examination is necessary; pain or .anxiety drive them to call impatiently tor the doctor's help. But there are other diseases which begin insidiously and progress by slow degrees, yet in which the importance of early treatment is becoming daily more manifest. Amongst this second group must be counted tuberculosis, cancer, the anaemias, and certain diseases of the heart, kidneys, and blood vessels. Only by early medical examination can these diseases be checked; otherwise the - opportunities of what may be strictly described as preventive medinitie uYe my awul).. Though the ftuvQc&tuig qi a yegulw

and systematic medical examination of all apparently healthy people would meet with opposition, it nevertheless has its advocates in many lands.

Though this is not at present advocated in New Zealand, the Health Week campaign aims at popularising a knowledge of hygiene, a knowledge which is the fruit of the remarkable progress which; medicine has made during past years, and of which the individual in the community has seldom even heard. Could this knowledge be universally attained .and applied, the world's happiness could not fail to be increased. The laws and regulations' of sanitary authorities have their place; they follow the awakening of the popular health conscience. When . this conscience is aroused, it will then not be difficult to secure the necessary encouragement and support of the public for that co-opera-tion necessary for the carrying into effect of further essential health reforms.

Since 1914, certain life insurance companies have extended to their clients the right, of periodical medical examination. One company has stated that, thanks to advice thus gi-uen in time, a theoretical mortality of 303 has been reduced to an actual mortality^ of 267, that is, a reduction in mortalityrate of 28 per cent.

Tlie economic argument is not the most convincing. The gain to the individual, to his family and his country, cannot be measured in sterling, nor has any account been taken in the above calculations,.of the suffering and disablement from which the survivors had been preserved. Let the 'cash value of the extra years of life secured, as published by the company, stand, however, as a refutation to those who would judge the scheme too hastily, and dismiss it as, "Utopian." Routine periodical medical examination is as practicable as it is productive; its only real obstacle is the ignorance of its, value and the apathy of those who are most nearly concerned.

The Health Week 'campaign will serve to focus the attention of the individual on that most important, and most neglected, subject—his own good health.