THE PEOPLE’S HEALTH

Evening Star, Issue 21519, 18 September 1933, Page 9

THE PEOPLE’S HEALTH

BRITISH MEDICAL OFFICERS ANALYSIS ENCOURAGING CONDITIONS (British Official Wireless.) Prei« Association—By Telegraph—Copyright RUGBY, September 15. The effect of the prolonged economic depression on the public health, a subject affecting practically the whole civilised world and millions of people, is carefully analysed in relation to Great Britain by Sir George Newman, Chief Medical Officer of Health, in his annual survey of 1932. Sir George Newman points out that the “ surest of all tests of the grave results are the mortality returns. Any long-sus-tained physical pressure represents itself ultimately in a rise in mortality. Hero wc have a long-continuing experience of unemployment, gradually becoming more acute, yet the mortality in England and Wales, as a whole, with few exceptions, even in the many depressed areas themselves, has been uniformly decreasing.” The mortality rates for England and Wales in 1932 show the same steady definite decline witnessed since 1921-25. They are indeed exceptionally low—namely,-twelve per 1,000, as was also the infant mortality rate, which continued the decline which began twenty-five years ago. The deaths from disease were the lowest ever recorded in Britain. Particularly notable was the decline in tuberculosis, which disease was accepted everywhere as affording a valuable indication level of nutrition, especially of children. The conclusion reached is that there can be little or no under-nourishment in Britain, but that the population as a whole is better nourished than ever before. The Chief Medical Officer declares that there has been no general excess of sickness, ill-health, or physical incapacity which can be attributed to unemployment. The reason for this consoling state of affairs is that before the period of economic depression superior social medical machinery was already available in Britain for meeting exceptional circumstances. As an instance, Sir George Newton points to the operation of the immense scheme of supplementary feeding for nursing mothers and for children up to the age of fourteen years. He mentions that in 1932 62,000,000 school meals were provided, while 900,000 other school children received a supplementary milk supply.