THE HEALTH OF AUCKLAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13875, 8 October 1908, Page 4

THE HEALTH OF AUCKLAND.

If there were any need for additional proof as to the desirability of better sanitary precautions in the Auckland metropolitan area it would be found in the annual report of the District Health Officer. For quite I apart from his professional opinion stand the statistics collected and tabulated under his supervision, these statistics showing that, so far ) from the public health gaining ground during the year— it ought to do in a civilised community— siderable ground has been lost, We could regard death-rates with philosophical calmness and religious submission if they arose from the natural law governing all life, and were made by the passing away of the old and feeble, or by the accidents from which mankind can never be wholly free. But we are confronted by the fact that a very considerable proportion of deaths are not merely; preventable, but are of men, women and children who', but for artificial conditions which induce ill-health and disease, might be as healthy and vigorous as any who survive them. In otfcer words they die not because of any inherent and irremovable weakness, but because of the deadly influence of conditions quite alterable with our present knowledge and existing powers. They are slain as surely as though they were shot by the insanitary conditions which the municipal or other authorities permit to continue. That the deathrate in;; Aucklandcity and suburb —should have risen from 12.51 per 1000 during the previous year to 13.38 per 1000 during last year, is only a phase of the evil for the lower figure an immense sacrifice of human life which might have been avoided. The death of over ten children Under one year for every hundred children born in Auckland City is a disgrace to a civilised community, nor is the slightly lower death-rate of . the suburbs anything better. For insanitary surroundings, improper feeding, and other avoidable causes undoubtedly kill the greater number of these infants. Not until we regard every death from avoidable causes as constituting an indictment of Christian society shall we act energetically in the matter. The* least we can do is to proceed as rapidly as possible with drainage, even though we allow petty influences to prevent that municipal reorganisation of the Greater Auckland area which must be accomplished before systematic sanitary reform can be hoped for."