PLUNKET DAY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23594, 1 March 1940, Page 6

PLUNKET DAY

No matter what other claims to voluntary financial support by the general public may be presented, that of the Plunket Society remains as good as ever. This should be borne in mind to-day, when the annual street collection in aid of the society will be made throughout the city. New Zealand has reason to be proud of the work of the society. For more than thirty years it has been carried on with steady enthusiasm, and in the course of this period, long enough for the thorough testing of its aims and methods, it has-proved its worth. Vital statistics have told an impressive tale ; not in an altogether unbroken sequence—various factors operate unevenly in producing mortality percentages from time to time—but with sufficiently continuous encouragement to justify confidence in the scheme. By the faith and work of Sir Trub.v King and his increasing band of convinced assistants, New Zealand was led out of the anxiety with which childhood's earliest years were generally viewed in the world ; and other countries, inspired by this example, were soon to be cheered by similar endeavour and success. Yet, in the first year of the Great War, it was more dangerous to be a baby under a year old than to be a soldier on the western front. It is good to think that the Plunket Society's great work in this country has taken the name of New Zealand out of such a comparison and set it in honour at the head of a statistical column of infant-mortality figures. Last year its honour was greater than ever, after what looked like the beginning of a fall from grace. To keep the good work going there must be as; much enthusiasm outside the nurses' ranks as in them—in other words, there must be intelligent and hearty public giving. Ten years or so ago it was reckoned that a guinea would provide for two days' work by a Plunket nurse—work done in teaching mothercraft and attending to babies in scores of instances. In these days, alas, money does not go so far, but a multitude of shillings can work many such miracles still.