CHRISTMAS SEAL

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIX, Issue 301, 5 December 1929, Page 6

CHRISTMAS SEAL

MESSAGE OF HOPE APPEAL FOR DELiCATE CHILDREN. The Christmas Seal, a combined postage and anti-tuberculosis stamp, will be procurable at all i J ost Offices turouguout tue Dominion early December, or a date which will be pub licly notified. The design has been completed, but the printing of many hundreds of thousands of stamps necessarily takes some tune. Every effort is being made to expedite tue issue of the seal. Half of the fund derived from the stamps will be devoted to the campaign against tuberculosis, including the establishment of health eamps for delicate or undernourished children, or children who have a tendencj to contract tuberculosis, or whose surroundings may be such as to lecu to their contracting the infection. The Christmas Seal movement has been most successful in all the leading <oun tries of the world. Every citizen, even those with the most slender means, can help by placing a seal on his or her letters or cards of greeting during the few weeks before Christmas. Each seal means the gift of a penny fur a most worthy cause. The Minister of Health has made a strong personal appeal to the public to support the movement, winch should result in a further improvement in the public health by reducing the incidence of tuberculosis, mainly, in the first instance, by the establishment of permanent health camps, medically supervised, for delicate and undernourished children or children who have a tendency to contract tub-erciilv.-is It is in children that this disease usually makes its first appearance. Sir William Osler, the distinguished physician, in an address to medical men, referring to tuberculosis, said: "The leadership of the cattle against the scourge is m your nands. Much has been done; much remains to do. By early diagnosis, and prompt, systematic treatment of individual cases, by striving in every way to improve the social condition of the poor, by joining actively >n the work of the local and national antituberculosis societies you can help in the most important and the most hopeful campaign ever undertaken by the profession.” "SYMBOL OF HELP.” The Christmas seal has come as the visible symbol of that help. By iti effort it is hoped, among other considerations to bring into existence rest homes for debilitated children—that is potentially tubercular children. Apart from, the protection of the child from early infection, we know that nutrition is the most vital problem we have to consider. It is a social aid an economic question. We trust that these rest camps will be a practical illustration of how to live. Other conn tries are keenly alive to the preventive aspect of tuberculosis in its many sidedness. Let us not lag behind in our effort to do what is humanly possible. and at this season of the year to remember those words which have rung down the ages "Inasmuch us ye have done it unto one of the leant of these my brthren ye have done it unto Me.”