CHILD HEALTH

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 308, 26 November 1936, Page 2

CHILD HEALTH

CONDITIONS IN ENGLAND. DOCTOR’S OBSERVATIONS. “I am very pleased to bo back in New Zealand. It feels much more free and not so bound by tradition. England is a charming place and has delightful climatic variations, but tne poorer classes seem to be so terribly tied and restricted. They can live quite cheaply. but cannot have the amenities which we enjoy oil the same financial basis in New Zealand. Sports activities and recreational pleasures are very ,expensive for the ordinary people. These observations were made to a “Standard” representative yesterday by Dr. Adah Platts-Mills, who lias returned to New Zealand after an absence of five years abroad, and is talcing up an appointment with the school medical service of the Health Department. With her father, Mr J. • Mills, she is the guest of Mr and Mrs L. H. Collinson, of Palmerston North. Her mother, Dr. D. E. Platts-Mills, is visiting her son, Mr E. F. Mills, of Grey Street. Dr. Adah Platts-Mills took . her medical degree in New Zealand and was a house surgeon ill the \\ ellington Hospital before going to England. She was oil the staffs of the British Hospital and London County Council Hospitals in London, where she specialised in obstetrics and gynaecology and qualified D.O.U.U. For the last two years 6he lias been in private practice in Bournemouth, and her parents have resided with her in England. “The thing I missed most in; my work in England,” said Dr 1 latts Mills, “was contact with a body line the Plunket Society. There are various organisations carrying out similar work, but not on the same national linos, • and co-operation is lacking. Among the dense population ot the poorer classes there is an immense amount of ignorance so far as ordinary health matters," food values and cooking are concerned. Food is more or loss standardised except at the expensive places. THE MILK SUPPLY".

“Control of the milk supply is a difficult problem,” added Dr. PlattsMills. “There is no compulsory tuberculosis test and the use of raw milk is so dangerous that babies have to be fed on dried milk. Britain is lagging very far behind New Zealand and America in this respect, and it is very difficult to break down the traditional marketing methods of farmers and institute compulsion.” Dr. Platts-Mills added that when she left Bournemouth a typhoid epidemic, involving some 400 cases, was prevailing. The origin of this outbreak had been traced to the milk. Such conditions were impossible m New Zealand. “Malnutrition among children is very marked in the cities,” the doctor commented. “However, numerous movements are now functioning, and steadily increasing their activities, in taking children to the seaside. The malnutrition is due to the lack of good food, as the children in the poorer districts are brought up on bread and jam and tea. People there have not yet learned to spend their money to the best advantage. Generally speaking, the physical standard is not very high, though it has improved in the last few years. There is a considerable degree of nutritional anaemia prevailing among Women.” " r

Women doctors, continued Dr. Platts-Mills, were being accepted with increasing confidence in private practice in England, where there was a big call for women doctors. There was great evidence of unemployment on all the street corners. Morale was lessened by the fact that men did not work for the dole, which Was itself inadequate, and it would be better to increase it and make it a payment for .at least some work. Men round they were doing a week’s work for little more than the dole and consequently went on to the latter at the first excuse. THE TURMOIL IN SPAIN. Over two years ago, said Dr. PlattsMills, she liad visited France, Spain and Italy. Though there was then, of course, no sign of pending civil strife, there had just been a demonstration in Madrid, and shots had been fired ‘ into shop windows. She noticed that the people there had an extraordinary callousness towards every form of animal life, but they were cheerful and worked hard. Elderly women were engaged in fields which appeared as if they would not support a mule to a few square miles. Hundreds of miles of land were covered with quite useless rosemary scrub, the northern country being very barren, but at Valencia the orchards were smothered in golden oranges. There were conflicting reactions in England towards the issue in the Spanish civil war, but there was a general feeling of regret that now the people had secured representation in the Government, more powerful r elements were seeking to establish the old regime, and there would be a desperate situation if the rebels won the day.