NATION'S HEALTH

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 36, 12 February 1931, Page 4

NATION'S HEALTH

SAVING THE INFANTS

A NEW PROBLEM

(From "The Post's" Representative.'; LONDON,. 2nd January. The fact that 40,000 lives are being1 saved in Great Britain every year wjiieh would not have been saved a, generation ago is emphasised in the report of Sir George Newman, Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education. He points out, however, that we are maintaining our population with the "less physically fit." "Why is there not more sign of the reduction of sickness amoug school children?" he asks. "There has been an. immense improvement in the social conditions of school life and home life, and there has been a great advance in the medical, dental, and nursing services, provided by the loeaj education authorities." Too many seeds of far-reaching infection (the report continues) ara sown in childhood (tuberculosis, measles, rheumatic fever, etc.), but the main stream, of "school diseases" consist of slight and remedial departures from the normal, which, *if promptly corrected, should leave no permanent mark behind. For ' instance, 850,000 cases of minor ailment* were treated in 1929. The average degree of severity was considerably less than formerly. : ■ INFANTILE MORTALITY. The infantile mortality rate of: 1891----1900 was 153 per 1000, compared with' 74 per 1000 for 1920-1929. Meanwhile, the birth rate had fallen from 25.5: in 1920 to 16.3 in 1929. We are now saving the lives of tens' of thousands of infants who, under former conditions, would not have survived. When we remember also that for many years the birth, fate has been declining more rapidly among the better physical stocks of the population than, among the less physically fit, we cannot fail to recognise that,the present generation of school children may b& relatively lacking in physical stamina, and powers of resistance. This temporary change (provided it remains transitory) is not necessarily, bad in. itself, for a sound, reason for not saving infant life. In theory we could get a ; strong physical race .by r allowing the feebler specimens to die, or be sterilised and breeding from th» best stocks. But it is only a theory^, for .who is to determine which children.! shall die? and who is to select the best stocks? ; . :-'■■• : • We hear a great deal of 4 talk about "the law of survival of the fittest" which obtains in Nature, but we are apt to'forget that for man "the fit*test" ■is not necessarily the best. ."';■; AN URGENT MATTER. , We shall never be in a position to deal satisfactorily with our school medical problems until and unless we improve the physical condition- of the* children between infancy and school life. : ' ■ One of the matters most urgently] calling for public attention1 is the study, and practice of personal hygiene, both!' in the schools and among the mothers of ~ pre-school children. It is disappointing to find how very little systematic teaching in matters of health is being given in the secondary schools. Of the 74,497 children, who died under five years of age in 1929, as many as 47,868 were dead before their first birthday. Thirty years ago (1900) the nation lost 142,912 infants under on« year of .age. ■ - : ' "It is difficult to fulfil the true pnrV poses of. th& SchopL'Medical Service.'* concludes Sir • George, "in unsanitary^,' ill-ventilated, unhea-ted, or uncleaii schools.',;,. ;'He ..hopes .that in the not; distanV<.futurV''^Hs;.:' : 'j;'-.iilot.;'inay/be re-" moved. -; ':;^:- :...:;' .'. ■■■:■■' :