HEALTH OF THE PEOPLE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 197, 19 July 1935, Page 2

HEALTH OF THE PEOPLE.

REPLY TO STATEMENT. CONVINCING STATISTICS. (Bv Telegraph.—Special to Standard.) WELLINGTON, July 18. “Exaggerated nonsense” is the term applied by the Public Health Officer, wiiose attention was called to Dr E. B. Gunson’s statement at Auckland that New Zealanders are physically B grade people. He suggested that the soundest criteria are mortality statistics and the expectation of life, in respect of which New Zealand has an enviable world recond. The Health Department’s figures relating to the examination of 51,000 children, on which the Auckland criticism was based, classed as physical defects such points as uncleanliness, while dental caries account for 18.36 and enlarged tonsils 12 per cent. of the total physical defects. Mild defects, causing round shoulders, total 14.37 per cent., while, on the other hand, tuberculosis conditions are found in only .07 children and nervous defects .48. New Zealand school children have been subjected to official height and weight tests since 1913, the results showing a steady advance in both respects during twenty years. The only exact corresponding data available relate to the children of Toronto schools who, while close to New Zealand’s juvenile physical standard, are not quite equal.