Nervous Diseases Increase

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 122, 25 May 1937, Page 10

Nervous Diseases Increase

WAR ATMOSPHERE EFFECTS “It is a lamentable fact that a generation of Germans, starved in childnood by reason of the war blockade, and starved in their adult years as a preparation for some future war, scarcely know how to set about a good square meal when it is before them," said Mr Fred Hughes, president of the National Association of Trade Union Approved Societies, at a meeting of the Provincial Centro of the association in Manchester. Mr Hughes was speaking on habit and environment in relation to health, and, in a reference to the effects of malnutrition, said that in three years—■ from 1932 to 1935—the mortality of the insured population of Germany had risen from 20.5 to 27 per 1000, an increase of 32 per cent. In the case ol non-contributory persons in the insurance scheme (the lower middle class) the increase was 40 per cent. In Britain tho contributory causes of a high mortality, in their order of effectiveness, were overcrowding, uncleanliness and bad sanitation, poverty, parental ignorance, and neglect. The noticeable improvement in the public health had gone on side by side with the attack on tnese evils, and we were more indebted to that attack even than to the advancse of medical science in the treatment of disease.

Mr J. W. Yerrel (National Union of Distributive and Allied Workers), chairman of the centre, said mental or psychological causes might have much to do with ill-health at tho present day. All this talk of and preparation for war, and the prevailing fear of it, must be bad for the nervous and therefore for the physical health of the people. Mr Leonard Bowden, of London (National Union of Seamen), said that nervous disease seemed to be increasing on every hand, and ho attributed it to the present-day habit of life of the people. Mr Hughes, replying, said that undoubtedly there was a great increase of nervous diseases, and the amount of it to-day was enormous. Tho bulk of the sickness from his society—the National Union of Clerks and Administrative Workers—paid out was in respect of diseases of or connected with the nervous system. The main causes of the increase were the effect of tho war on those who took part in it, and those brought up in its atmosphere, the trade depression of recent years, and he ever-increasing sense of insecurity,