HEALTH OF BRITISH PEOPLE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 142, 17 May 1941, Page 7

HEALTH OF BRITISH PEOPLE

(British Official YY’ircless.) RUGBY,AIay Id. The United Stales is sending to Britain a committee'Of American medical men to try to find out why the people have come through the winter’s ordeal with better health than in the years of peace. Aledical men generally are completely half led by the nation s fitness. They had feared that, alter the nights of crowding in air-raid shelters and exposure to all weathers when on A.R.P. and fire-watching duties, epidemics might sweep the country. There have bean fewer cases of scarlet fever, diphtheria, pneumonia, and .typhoid fever, and only half the number oi deaths lrom influenza. YY’liooping cough and meningitis alone have been rather more prevalent than usual. Britain's own doctors offer various explanations, among them the dispersal from the densely-populated areas, the improved system of health supervision, the spread ot education in preventive measures and the fewer people at the cinemas and in other public places. All, however, are agreed that the busy and hazardous life that is led by forty million people leaves them neither time nor inclination io brood over their minor ailments.