“A B GRADE PEOPLE”

Northern Advocate, 20 July 1935, Page 10

“A B GRADE PEOPLE”

PINT OF MILK DAILY /■ 1 ______ WAY TO IMPROVE HEALTH. : DR. GUNSON’S ARGUMENT. [Special to “Northern Advocate.”} t AUCKLAND, This Day. * The denial by Mr H. J. D. Mahon, headmaster of the Auckland GramJihiar Sthbdl, of Dr. E. B. Gunson’s statement that “already we are a B grade people physically, with all the : sigr»s ; ’ of increasing degeneration’; and the comment by a public health bfficer in . Wellington that the state-, ment was “exaggerated nonsense,” were referred to yesterday by Dr. iGunson.

jnaf. Schqol boys as the ‘Life Guards of the school army,” he said. They do not represent the average in physique of the school children of this country. It must be readily admitted that they are a fine body of boys, and I View them with the greatest . admiration; but even as far as they are concerned, Mr Mahon admits that they should have their pint of milk a day. Why? Because he wants their physique sustained. If it is necessary for boys of trie physical calibre of those attending the Auckland Grammar School to have their jpriillt ration, hew much more necessary is it for the other school children who fall far short of that standard?’’

;! , ■ \ Soundest Criterion. •V; Dealing., with what he termed “the andnymous criticism of a fmblic health officer,”' Dr. Gunson insisted that the soundest criterion of public health was not the mortality figures, which showed the incidence of disease the morbidity figures; and if his critic was pleased with those, he (Dr. Gun§on), as a Hospital Board member and taxpayer, was not. The test of nutrition introduced in 1913 was entirely inadequate today. During the last 20 years the whole subject of nutrition had been rewritten. During that period New Zealand health records had repeated an appalling story of malnutrition amopg school children, year in and year out. “I claim,” he said, '“that the official figures I quoted are open to this interpretation or they mean nothing. It is high time that this was plainly stated to the public, who are paying tpe price they represent in ill-health, inefficiency and Departmental costs.” Dr. Gunsoh said that if the children of the Dominion were supplied with one pint, of milk a day that single act would signalise the dawn of applied preventive medicine in New Zealand. The criticism coming from the Health Department was in line with the policy the country had been pursuing_a policy responsible for the ever-increasing demand for hospital accommodation. There was every reason to assume a direct relationship between the low consumption ox milk and the prevalence of nutritional diseases during childhood and adolescence, for not only had New Zealand an ; alarming percentage of physical defects among school children, but the highest incidence of hospital disease occurred between the age period of 15 to 25. More significant still was that hospital mortality figures disclosed the .fact that over 50 per cent of all deaths occurred between the ages of 15 and 45, when health should be at its best. Direct Connection. Who would say, asked Dr Gunson,

that there was , not a direct relationship between the excepd) lal’y poor ' state of the teeth of New Zealand children and the deficiency of milk in their diet; or between the thousands of digestive diseases that filled the hospitals and the heavy percentage of dental caries; or between the large number of respiratory diseases among young people and the chest and other deformities developed during school age? The extensive experiments carried out by the Medical Research Council in Great Britain shed a, new light on malnutrition and nutritional diseases, and in all . its work milk was receiving paramount consideration. “I do not think it can be legitimately counted'as part of the duty of a medical officer of health wilfully to mislead the public on this important question,” added Dr. .Gunson. “On the • contrary, We are entitled' to look to the Department for that measure of enlightenment we are bringing to bear on the position.”