The Evening Star THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1938. LATE SIR TRUBY KING.

Evening Star, Issue 22879, 10 February 1938, Page 10

The Evening Star THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1938. LATE SIR TRUBY KING.

Sin Truby King, whose death is reported to-day from Wellington, was something more than a great man; he was a great benefactor of humanity. In a speech which he made when he was Governor-General of this Dominion, Lord Bledisloe made some reflections on greatness. He said it often struck him as remarkable how many remained in blissful ignorance of the immortals who dwelt among them. “ Three great scientists of this country would live in history and hand on their work as a legacy to humanity—Rutherford, Cockayne, and Truby King.” Of these he was proud to say that one, Dr Cockayne, hailed from the Old Country. New Zealanders can take pride in the fact that Sir Truby King, like Lord Rutherford, was born in this country; and they can feel some satisfaction that, like those of the supreme physicist, his qualities and his accomplishment were fully realised by them while he lived. It is not to detract from Sir Truby King’s achievement to say that not all the ideas with which he started his campaign for the saving of infant life and the improved health of mothers had their origin entirely in his own consciousness. Like the germs of all great movements, the ideas were in the air in several countries, and had been so for some time. They had made some progress in France, and in 1903 Dr G. F. M'Cleary, medical officer to the Battersea Borough Council, who was afterwards first Commissioner in England for National Health Insurance,, and who visited New Zealand a few years ago, published a report on the subject which is enlightening. The report begins with the statement that " a very large proportion of the infantile mortality is due directly or indirectly to improper feeding,” and goes on to make the case for breast feeding, and, in default of it, for humanised milk. The surpassing virtue of Sir Truby King’s work when he took up the subject lay in the thoroughness of his researches—performed here in Otago—the success with which, by untiring public lectures, he converted the women of New Zealand to his ideas, and his founding, through them, of an organisation on a national basis, assisted by the Government, exceeding anything that had been done abroad. And when the movement, started by Dr M'Cleafy and others on a merely local basis, was flagging in England, he gave it a new impetus there. , ... .. The name of Sir Truby. King has been held in world-wide honour for many years, Jf ever there was an enthusiast for a cause, he was one. Those who remember his early efforts for the movement will remember the fire in his mind which made all other matters subordinate to it. The sceptic who was required to help must give his attention and time, at any hour of the day or night when he might be called upon. Newspaper offices were filled with dread when Sir Truby reached them, after his lectures, to check reports, insisting that.every word should be as he had delivered it. There is a true story of a cow which was milked at two o’clock in the morning, pursuant on a telephone request—or demand—received a few minutes before, for the establishment of a ’ scientific point. That peremptoriness of Sir Truby’s zeal was continued' till the last of his active years, and no one really resented any inconvenience which it caused. First the enthusiasm of the man and then the cause itself, as that came to be appreciated, justified it all. The Plunket Society to-day is a great organisation. It has played its unquestioned part in making New Zealand’s infantile mortality rate the lowest in the world. The maps of the North Island and South Island showing its branches and sub-branches are profusely dotted, and from the furthest countries where its example has spread beneficiaries bless it and its founder. In an earlier part of his work Sir Truby was helped by circumstances. It was when he pleaded for more healthy, less restrictive clothing for women. That seemed a hopeless cause, till Fashion, not here alone, decreed the Very changes he had been advocating, and no more was required to be urged upon that score, For many years Sir Truby was superintendent of Seacliff Mental Hospital, where he was distinguished by his ; enlightened ideas for the treatment of the mentally infirm. He had brilliant parts which could be shown in other directions, save that demands of the greatest and most needed causes to which his life was given left the rarest opportunity for their display. And his wife was the perfect partner in his work; without her it w.ould have meant much less than it has done. Full of years, Sir Truby King has gone to his rest, but his monuments can be seen on every hand, and the work that is continued by them cannot perish.