DIET AND DISEASE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19838, 7 January 1928, Page 6 (Supplement)

DIET AND DISEASE.

BX SIB W. ABBUTHNOT-LAKS.

PREVENTION BETTER THAN CURE.

The report on the state of public health in England and Wales, published by §ir George Newman, chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health, is of intense interest. It would at first strike one as being of an optimistic character rauggesting that possibly too much stress has been laid upon the matter of diet, and especially upon the burning question of the relative value of white versus wholemeal bread. While everyone is anxious to be relieved from fear, one is a*—ailed by the terrifying statement that cancer, that dread scourge which appears to be inevitably associated with civilisation, is claiming greatly increasing numbers of victims every year. The figures Sir George Newman supplies show an increase from 274 per million in 1847-1850 to 1362 per million in 1926. _ ... This immense rise in mortality from this appalling disease has occurred in ?pite of all tbo research work don® is innumerable laboratories, both in Great Britain and elsewhere, and of the increasing knowledge, experience, and skill of the surgeon in his operative measnres for the removal of the disease as soon as it is recognised. Operation Inevitable.

All the report indicates, the main incidence of cancer is in the digestive tract, a situation in which its recognition is never possible in an initial stage, and when operative measures can alone effect its removal with any prospect of success. Naturally, one shares Sir George Newman's hope that some means shall be discovered by which cancer can be treated by methods other than operative, bn;t both common 6ense and experience offer little prospect of success. This report strengthens immeasurably the attitude taken up by the New Health Society in its articles in The Daily Mail, since it demonstrates unmistakably the intimate association which exists between food and disease—a fact proved conclusivelv by the experimental work of Colonel McCarrison, Professor Plimmer, Dr. MJ. Rowlands, and a host of distinguished observers.

All this affords the Etrongest evidence in support of the view that the future of medicine lies in nrevention. Again it emphasises the vita! and argent importance to the British nnhlic of the formation of Chairs in Dietetics not only in London University hot in all th«». medical schools in the conntrv, in order that every doctor shall b« thorough!* familiar with that factor which is most responsible for the health and hanniness of the nnhlic. Innumerable correspondents have written letters fnll of annreciation and admiration for the magnificent work the Daily Mail i« doing to educate and render our people healthy, vigorous, and free from disease.