Evening Post. FRIDAY, AUGUST 3, 1923. DOCTORS AND TEACHERS

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 29, 3 August 1923, Page 6

Evening Post. FRIDAY, AUGUST 3, 1923. DOCTORS AND TEACHERS

The reports of the School Medioal Inspectors suggest that teachers for the parents are needed even more than doctors for the children. Health in New Zealand generally is good. A salubrious climate, fairly good economic conditions, and social surroundings which are at least no worse than those of other countries, have contributed to this. The Health Department watches for epidemics and insists that local authorities shall keep at least one eye open for rats and other plague-carriers. Nature has been kind to us; but we are in the way of being unkind to ourselves. The standardised death rate last year was 10.70 per thousand, and this is held to be remarkably low. The population of New Zealand has the greatest expectation of life of any of the leading countries in the world. With our infants we do well —remarkably well, though Dr. Truby King yet hopes to do much better. For these things we may be truly thankful—grateful to Nature, the Health Department, the Plunket Society, and Dr. Trnby King. For the bad points in our health system we are ourselves chiefly to blame. The worst point is revealed by the record that 88 per cent, of school children medically examined were found to have defects, and 60 per cent, had defects other than dental. Some of the defects were : Sub-normal nutrition (7 per cent.), postural and structural deformity of the trunk and chest (26 per cent.), faulty development of the jaws and irregularity of the teeth (13 per cent.), enlarged tonsils (11 per cent.), and enlarged glands of the neck (11 per cent.)

We cannot dismiss these figures with an easy shrug of the shoulders: " What s can you expect with such a Government but bad housing," or " The economic system does not provide a living wage." Dr. Mecredy supplies an answer to such airy explanations. It is stated that a poor home environment is often responsible for malnutrition and anaemia, but: "At the opposite pole we find the child of the well-to-do parent similarly suffering from malnutrition and anaemia. The history in many of these cases suggests a lack of parental control. The child eats when and where he pleases, and generally indulges to excess in lollies, biscuits, and cakes. Lack of sleep, frequent visits to the pictures, and a love of the indoor life are also often noted in- these children." Open windows and fresh air are within the means of all; and wholesome food is often less expensive than the unwholesome diet upon which, so the doctors' report suggests, many children are subsisting. Good habits certainly cost less than' bad; yet many parents are doing their best, or their worst,' to form the bad. As an. example, an Auckland report, apropos of dental disease 1 and the habit of eating between meals, stated recently that playlunch had now become a recognised institution in most city schools. Some parents, too busy to provide this lunch, even went sc far as to give the children pennies to purchase biscuits and sweetmeats. To eradicate such bad habits will possibly be a long and painful task; but until some progress is made much of the excellent work done in the earlier years of infancy will be undone, and a bad foundation will be laid for the work cf the Health department in later years. Merely to discover and remove the defects'of childhood will not be satisfactory. It is the parental defects that must be attacked. ' The best method of attack, we believe, will be the system now inaugurated of following up the medical examination of the child by a personal interview with the parents. Education in health undttr this eyatsm should aooia f&eiilt iv mpye hopeful reports.