IS NORTH AUSTRALIA HEALTHY!

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 8932, 26 June 1905, Page 4

IS NORTH AUSTRALIA HEALTHY!

There is the widest difference of opinion as to the effects of the climate- of North Queensland on the English constitution. While labor advocates deny that it is injurious, while those who take the other side seek to prove 'that white men and women, and particularly the poorer classes,, suffer very considerably. There is a unanimity of opinion that the Australian who gains his living up there, whether in or out of doors, has a different appearance to residents of the south! Dr C. T. Lloyd, who' lias for 15 years been practising in Mackay, lias paid particular attention to the effect of the climate upon tho white resident. "The atmosphere," he says, "is always humid, and a temperature of 86 Fahrenheit is often unbearable. Persons who luivo lived out \tcsii state that 120deg. in the shade there is more bearable than 90deg. heru, on account of the difference in humidity." ' "Tke tendency of the white race here," continues Dr Lloyd, "is to degenerate. Children whose parents have means to house, clothe and feed them adequately suffer little by comparison with those of the poorer classes ; but the ordinary rough fare is inadequate to tho proper physical and mental development of any white child. Experience has taught much, and the physique of the children in tho town itself has, on the whole, improved of late years; bub in the Hat country there is much to be desired. Housing has a grait deal to do with tho health of tho community. The houses here ar<j generally built of wood, often of iron. Few of those belonging to the poorer farmers or laboring men are- ceiled, and in tho greater part of the day they are little less than ovens."

Dr Lloyd sliares the general opinion that this climate is excessively severe on women. "Turning to •children," lie says, "it naturally follows that the auspices are not favorable to the beginning of thenlife. The woman who has to cook in a kitchen where the temperature under the iron is 120dcg. is not tho best of nurses. Corrugated iron under the sun often reaches 140deg., and reflects heat excellently well, both above and below. Tho housing has a. great deal to do with Uic health of a community. Malarial cacliexia is common, in outlying districts, and the best cure — change of ah- — is beyond tho means of the child's parents; and as the child grows, the boy, although abnormally intelligent, is often lazy, and backward in physical growth. The girl, less backward in point of size, reaches maturity; which is only a drain upon her, long before she lias attained her ultimate form. Under theso circumstances the toiler may struggle on for -a few years — experience has not yet shown how many, but to my knowledge there are nuny sober and hard-working, men of forty apparently far nearer their end than most men of sixty in the Old Country, They cannot get change. Their teeth are gone, and they cannot afford J more. Their digestions follow. They suffer from unspeakable "sprue" or from asthma. What is ,to become of them? Are all to become a charge to the State?"

"With regard to the abuse of stimulants there is a" great deal to be said. A man comes from bracing climates with lots of energy, and. is plunged into a gulf of relaxation of nervous '• and muscular energy; or perhaps he ia a native of the 1 place, and suffers from the fact in a natural tiredness. In either case, after he has worked in- the heat 1 all day, and has sweated freely, his skin over active, and his digestive functions correspondingly reverse,' can 1 it be wondered at that, if unused.to self-restraint and ignorant of the consequences, he tries alcohol as a stimulant, and, having tried it once, may resort to it again? Alcohol is easy of access to the wage-earner without encumbrances. It does not appear t to be 'expensive, and in the tropics many |oaths acquire the alcohol habit. befoi>e I? they 'are full- grown. The 1 ,tw>rjics problem is.a.great.one: 'The 'writer! believes' ithat until some -arrangement is! raajfe; whereby all the \ white residents in' the tropics 'can earn enough to make them-> selves comfortable almost.to the point of luxury; or to leave foVe, better cunie after a term of years, we shall have steady deterioration. The ooroUary is obvious."