PREVENTIVE MEDICINE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 18 February 1926, Page 2

PREVENTIVE MEDICINE.

NEED FOR RESEARCH INSTITU-

TION. (BY TELEGItAPH PHESS ASSOCIATION.) NELSON, Eeb. 17. The annual conference of the New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association commenced to-day, when -^ r !• -A- Gibbs, the president-elect, was inducted. The retiring president, Dr Carriek Bobertson (Auckland) congratulated Dr Gibbs (Nelson) on his election to the honourable position. In the course of his presidential addies, Dr Gibbs said hej could think of no question so urgent at the present time as the need for the establishmet of an institute of preventive medicine. In .the interests of the race the study of preventive medicine is probably of far greater importance to us as human beings. Medical discovery is the most important of all kinds of discovery, yet in this country, though adequate provision is made for the study of the practice of medicine, the study of preventive medicine is practically neglected, being represented by a recent grant of some £2OOO. Nor are we alone in so inadequately dealing with, so vast a subject. The world needs an awakening to the necessity of systematically and comprehensively studying the laws of health and, the causation and prevention of disease. As a profession we require larger vision. We require to imagine what this world might and should be if freed from preventable disease and its consequences. The decreasing birth rate throughout the .white races, and particularly as regards the British race, is not altogether,a misfortune, but it lessens the number the race can afford to sacrifice to preventable diseases. Not only .so, but in no period of recorded history has the stress and strain on the white races been so severe. If man is to stand up to the increasing stresses and conditions of modern civilisation he will need a sound mind in a healthy body. This can only be secured by a much wider knowledge of the laws of health and the causation of disease than we at present possess. After dealing at considerable length on various phases -of the question, including the struggle for existence, Dr Gibbs proceeded--. ‘‘‘We suggest that an institute for research is imperative and that it can be established only when we as -a profession are sufficiently seized of its importance. The health of any community can advance only just as far as the medical profession is capable of carrying it. Such an institution must come. It must be adequately endowed, say, with a sum of £500,000, and what better use could we make of our war, reparations? This may sound a large sum,, but it is only about a quarter of the amount We annually pay for the upkeep of our hospitals and about one-seventh of the amount of the annual grant for education. A medical institute for research offers benefit to humanity and a pecuniary return that is not approached by any of the other public expenditure, social and even educational grants included. We spend millions in treating disease and almost nothing on the only possible way by which those millions and the suffering they represent can be saved. We have a well organised Public Health Department, with its sub divisional of school medical and dental officers! ana care of infants and the native race. “ A golden opportunity is within the reach of the Minister for Publie Health at the outset of his career in. that capacity if he will only grasp it and importune the Minister for Pinance in season and out of season for means to found an institute that will eventually benefit untold generations of New Zealanders. Interest is being aroused and money found for scientific, industrial and agricultural research. Why not for medical research, the most important of all, both to the individual and the nation? New Zealand was, we believe, the first country to establish a Minister of Publie Health. This was due to the combined efforts, oi tne medical profession, and it is not too much to hope that New Zealand will again lead the way, and) with. a larms vision -and hopeful establisn a national institute of preventive me dicine to investigate the laws of health and the cau&es of disease.