The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING WEDNESDAY, MARCH II. 1914.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 3586, 11 March 1914, Page 4

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11. 1914.

The necessity for remedying the Tarulieru river pollu-

The Parable of the Dirty River.

tion and other local menaces to

the public health will, or at least should, serve to awaken the public mind to the fact that after all Gisborne’s trouble—great as it may be in this particular locality—is but a small affliction compared with some of the widespread evils which tbo nation as a whole still suffers to exist. Tt has been truly said that the majority of the great eities of the world stand upon a river. This river brings life and health to the city and bears away dirt and disease. .It acts, too, as the channel of trade and the main artery of commerce. For its own preservation, a city look's to it that its river is kept clean and pureotherwise that which should' have been . for its health becomes a menace to its very existence. If the springs far away in the mountains in which the river finds its bource are polluted, or if filth and refuse are allowed to find their way into the stream above the town, no amount of palliative treatment lower down will do more than affect tlie surface of the water—underneath still will lie a sub-stratum of disease-producing mud, only wailing to be stirred up or to have the sun heat upon it to become the source of unclean disease and pestilence. The river on which a city stands is a symbol of the life that flows through the town and may be taken, too, by widening ’the prospect, to represent the life of a nation. As it so happens, the very existence of a State depends on its young life being pure at tfie outset and being kept uncontaminated during its early years. Hero wc may say that at the Australasian Medical Congress held recently in Auckland, the medical men discovered not only how to cure disease, but also how to prevent it, and one subject to which they gave much and careful consideration was that of venereal disease. It was. we should say, a revelation to most lay people to learn how widespread is tills trouble, at least in older countries, how persistently it clings to the sufferer, how terribly contagious if is. and bow many innocent sufferers there are, born to a life of misery and wretchedness through the sins of others. The doctors, it will be recalled, agreed that the time had come in New Zealand when '‘contagious dis-

eases,” as they are often called, should be notified to the Health authorities in order that proper precautions might be taken, first to help the sufferer, whom, it may be remembered, is often an innocent victim, and secondly to prevent the trouble from spreading. This matter is one that vitally affects the future of our race. No one but those who have the charge of our mental hospitals can say how many of the inmates are there through impurity and vice—no one but those who have had to wait upon expectant mothers can surmise how many premature births are caused through some taint in the system—but a visit to the children’s ward of any of the hospitals of our large towns will reveal many innocent little children doomed to a life of misery because they were horn with the taint of contagious disease in them. It is surely a matter in which the public must be educated Bishop Averill, in the course of his sermon at the opening of Congress, said that the whole comintiiiity looked to tlie medical profession for a lead in many matters and that they could mould public opinion in a way that no other body could. Wo must look to it then that when they give a lead in the right direction, it will he followed. Fear has been expressed that the W.C.T.U. Convention, in discuss ing this matter, may resolve to oppose the passing of an enactment making venereal disease notifiable through a mistaken idea that, if this ho done, it will fall harder on the women than on the men. If it were proved—and those capable of judging deny that it is—that the effects of such disease in the early stages are more noticeable in women than in men, surely that is no reason why every precaution should not be taken both to help the sufferer and safeguard the public ? If the W.C.T.U. resolves to oppose the recommendation of the medical congress, wo believe that it will ho running counter to the best interests of the country and to the judgment of those best calculated to form a sound: opinion on the matter. The world owes much to the wholesome influence of women, hut. it cannot he denied that some times women are led away by the surface appearance of things and do not give a subject that intense consideration it needs, nor seek to view a great matter from every point of view. As far as this community itself is concerned, there are of cox so other afflictions which the people in common with the rest of the nation have long been content to suffer, but which the limits of space this morning prevent us from discussing.