Hawke's Bay Herald SATURDAY, MARCH 19. HEALTH AND THE STATE.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12710, 19 March 1904, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Herald SATURDAY, MARCH 19. HEALTH AND THE STATE.

At the opening meeting of the New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association, which was held in Wellington this week, the President (Dr Collins, of Wellington) read a very interesting paper on the “Health of the People.” He pointed out that the death rate in this country was the lowest recorded. “It it is possible in any country,” he said, “to hold out the hope that by public measures the people may approach what is called physiological old age or normal death, that happy condition should be most nearly attained in a country so favourably situated as New Zealand.” This is an encouraging view, and it should stimulate the authorities to leave no stone unturned to secure this end.

' There are, says Dr Collins, three factors which tend to reduce the death rate. There is, first, a Government which is alive to all that concerns the health of the people. That, Dr. Collins thinks, we enjoy. “In New Zealand at the present time we have a Government which has always taken an active part in the public health of the colony,” he says, “a Government which during its term of office has inaugurated a Public Health Department and a Pathological Laboratory, and I should here like to congratulate the Government and the Public Health Department upon the prompt and effective manner in which they have resists ed the invasion of this colony by those two enemies to public health which so recently menaced our shores, namely, the plague and the small-pox. They are also to be congratulated upon having established at Cambridge a sanatorium for the treatment of consumptives, and upon having determined to make provision for consumptive patients by means of annexes to various hospitals in various parts of the colony where the climatic conditions are favourable for the treatment of that disease. The Government has also instituted the very needful precaution of inspection of dairies and slaughterhouses, and through the Bacteriological and Agricultural Departments, the inspection of dairying cattle. Moreover, to those who have spent the greater part of their lives in helping on the development and progress of the country, but who, in their old age, find themselves without the means of support, a pension has been provided in their declining days. It is gratifying to know that the Government has already done so much in the interests of the public health, and it is to be hoped that before very long it will be able to see its way towards establishing a much-needed institution, and that is a home for epileptics. Such a home, I feel sure, would confer a very great benefit in the community.” The next factor is a well-trained medical profession, and here again Dr Collins thinks we are on the right way. The only suggestion he has to offer is that graduates whose diplomas were gained at institutions which admit a lower standard than our own should not he permitted to practise until they qualify at our own University. The third factor is an intelligent public, alive to the dangers of disease. That our standard of intelligence is high may be admitted, and yet it may be true that the younger generation is not sufficiently alive to their duty in this respect. Dr Collins says it is the duty of every citizen to endeavour to maintain in himself—not for his own safety uoly, but also for the sake of his fellow citizens — the best condition of personal

health. Further, if an individual become infected by a contagious disease—it does not matter what the nature of

that disease may be—it is a part of his duty to assist in preventing by every means in his power the spread of the disease to others. In order that the young men and women of the colony may, on leaving school, be given some idea of their public duties in this connection, he suggests that there be added to their final course of study a simple treatise which might be drawn up by the Chief Medical Officer of Health for the colony, a treatise which would place them in possession of a few of the fundamental laws of public health and elementary hygiene, a treatise in which the names of the diseases which cause the greatest mortality in New Zealand, might be mentioned. Dr. Collins then turned to the diseases which are the most destructive in this colony—puerperal fever, phthisis, and cancer. Incidentally he notes one

defect in our treatment of such cases. “Some of the diseases which affect our death rate are caused by morbid growths, such as cancers, etc. Our present method of disposing of that mass of disease—germ-infected tissue or cancerous infiltrated tissue—is inconsistent with the methods of germ destruction which we take during life. Our present method is to confine the body with its diseased structures and the germs of disease, and to bury it a considerable depth in the ground. Probably to all of us during the course of our experience in practice, cases where the dead, and even the buried dead, have affected the health of the living are not uncommon. To cite an example, not long ago a patient died of a form of pneumonia. He was put into the coffin, which was closed. His brother came down just before burial and wished to see the face of his dead brother. The coffin was opened. This happened on a Tuesday; the healthy brother, apparently in the best of health on the Tuesday, died of the same disease on the Friday,’’ With regard to phthisis, Dr Collins lays stress on the necessity for instruc tion in the public schools. He is of opinion that every child in the Sixth and Seventh Standards should be informed that a chronic cough is a source of danger, and that frequent catching of colds is very often a predisposing cause of consumption by rendering respiratory tracts less able to resist the disease, and that the germg pf the disease are in the breath and phlegm of persons suffering from pulmonary phthisis. He suggests in addition to im parting such knowledge as above stated, that there should be a periodical

examination of the weakly children in our public schools. By such an examination the family predispositions to any disease might be discovered, and at any rate the signs of early phthisis might he detected and arrestee The alarming increase of cancer is, of course, a matter which everyone re- i gards with concern. At present, as Dr Collins admits, the treatment of the ! disease is very unsatisfactory. It almost invariably consists of excision 1 where excision is permissible. The j treatment by the X rays and the violet , rays seems to relieve pain, and in 1 many instances to cause retrogression < of the disease, but, unfortunately, the j disease is apt to recur. The serum j treatment is of too recent application ( to give spy decided results. The de- ( finite results p»4flped by radium and * helium are at present npkrown. It is, however, gratifying to know that 1 the subject is now being carefully In- | vestigated by the most experienced , practitioners, and that it will be sur- i prising if some rational mode of treat- ‘ ment is not discovered before long. In 1 the meantime, Dr Collins gfy«a some j comforting advice,of a general hind, i "I would like to state here that if I t were asked by a healthy man how be .should direct his life in order that he, might live to an old age,” he says, “I' would advise faim to ascertain if pes- I sible ito what disease th e was most liable j jjr kmitojr, mi w mi A 1?.' 1 / o

lay as long as possible, or altogther prevent its advent. I would also advise him to be more moderate in all things, in his eating and drinking and smoking, in his exercises and amusements, in his studies and occupation. There is no, doubt that abuses and excesses cause deterioration and loss of vitality and susceptibility to disease, and that injury and constant incitations in a debilitated person can convert a normal cell into a malignant one, a healthy tissue into a diseased one, and a normal structure into a cancerous one.” With this inculcation of moderation —of the golden mean—Dr Collins concludes. It is an old world advice, but it is perhaps none the less valuable at the present day.