ESTABLISHED 1866. The Marlborough Express. "WEDNESDAY, NOV, 19, 1919. MEDICINE AND HEALTH.

Marlborough Express, Volume LIII, Issue 272, 19 November 1919, Page 4

ESTABLISHED 1866. The Marlborough Express. "WEDNESDAY, NOV, 19, 1919. MEDICINE AND HEALTH.

A great revolution is in progress in England with regard to medicine j and health. It is a movement with | two branches, so to speak. The one branch relates to the public system of conserving the health of the community, and the other to a new 1 conception of disease that is being developed within the ranks of the medical profession. ... So far as the newly-established Ministry of Health is concerned, it is working in two main directions. Firstly, it is undertaking, with the assistance of the local authorities, the education of the people in elementary matters ! concerning cleanliness, and sanitation, and also the radical improvement of the housing accommodation and the general surroundings of .the working classes. Building and rebuilding schemes enter largely into the plans. Secondly, the State has set itself to conduct a scientific research into the root causes of disease, and to establish a modified form of national medical service which .willenable patients in every class of the community to obtain hospital treatment of the kind most suitable to the disease to be treated. Under the haphazard system of medical service which exists to-day in England, Australia, and in ; most civilised countries, the benefits of hospital treatment are denied to the middle , class and the wealthy class, except in cases requiring surgical operation, because treatment in a public hospital is associated'1 with charity. But the medical profession has come to the conclusion that the treatment of a patient in his'<'or her home is a bad system, whether- the home be luxurious or, humble.^ This system does not give the:,;doctor or the patient a fair chance. ; . There is no home, however luxurious, which provides facilities .for the treatment of disease that can be compared with the facilities to be found, in a modern hospital. for this reason the bulk of the medical profession is in favor of the extension of the hospital system, so, that such institutions will be available to all classes of the community, instead of only to the poorer classes. And it. is recognised that a national system, of medical service provides the best basis for a hospital system which will embrace all classes. -~. ■ . As for the new teaching in medicine, what it means is a great awakening to the fact that the body must always be considered as a whoif; and not' as a loosely-knit colony ot "organs," which fare well or ill quite independently,, of each other. The laym.-oi will better understand the subject if he grasps the truth that with the majority of people who ft el unwell it is not fundamentally a question of heart disease, lung disease, of bronchitis, appendicitis, or any other "itis" but of a general lowering of health. It is on to this ground that the new war, against, disease is being shifted. The medical correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph explains that to a great, extent humanity owes this beneficent development to the experience gained . during the'war. Work in the great military hospitals has altered trodieal thought marvellously, and led to more progress being made within five years than might have been accomplished in 50 years of endeavor on $he old lines. Investigations pursued in the endeavor to restore strength and health to thousands of men debilitated in war service hove made it clear that_ in lurking infections—not * necessarily ever iranifesting in acute general or local illness-7-aro to be found the seeds of indefinite disease such as hampers ■many. The new teaching is that these local troubles which; have hitherto occupied ouv attention as diseases in chief are really special manifestations of. a general lowering of health brought .about by some particular set of conditions which favors germ activity in familiar localities; that is to say, in disorder of the heart, for example, one has to look, far beyond that organ for the origins of the trouble, which may be fcrund in the activities of poison-producing germs insidiously; multiplying in some overlooked focus of "infection. "The riew medicine, then," says the authorI itv we have been quoting, "undoubtedly supports the original contention of, Sir Arbuthnot Lane and his followers, that much "ill-health, so-call-ed rheumatism; obscure forms of anaemia,1 nervois debility, heart discrder, and so forth is, if not originated; certainly kept urv, by germ poisoning from chronic infections of internal organs, amongst which stomach! and intestines must be given n leading place." No longer are medical students going- to be confined to the narrow view of local diseases and Their treatment, but t^am work, such ai is being carried out a.t the London Hospital, for example, will bring home to the embryo doctor the necessity of looking at the simplest malady fiom the point of view of the body us whole, and of combining a. variety of'special methods of general examination in elucidating i+s cause. In various medical schools these advanced principles are being put into mactice. and it fs confidently predicted that the impetus-British! medicine if? receiving from +he new spirit ; n medical research will carry it far forward.