A “HEALTH WEEK.”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18946, 21 August 1923, Page 6

A “HEALTH WEEK.”

If all goes well Dunedin is to have a “Health Week.” The public meeting called by the Mayor for this afternoon w’ith a view to arranging for the necessary organisation ought to evoke a response commensurate with the importance of the matter under consideration. “Whore ignorance is Wish ’tis folly to be wise,” but where ignorance is not bliss folly is its other name. ■ It seems unfortunately true that in a general way people fight shy of discussions on health. The average man says, “Let well alone,” in blissful unconsciousness of the fact that he is letting ill alone. Or he is quite too utterly content to leave all such matters to those whose particular business it is to attend to them. Thus, whether he knows it or not, he ranges himself on the side of the forces against which health campaigns must bo directed. It is necessary that he bo enlightened, and that something in the nature of a public conscience be aroused in respect of this question of health. If the crusade to \thafc end had sensational features the multitude would doubtless be attracted and possibly moved. But the appeal to common sense is the least sensational of all appeals, and habit has all the resisting power of a citadel. The “Health Week” movement reaches us, however, well commended by experience in the United Kingdom and elsewhere as attended with advantages to tho health of the community. It is the outcome of the requirements an unsatisfactory situation. Though great achievements stand to tho credit of sanitary science during the past fifty years much remains to be done before the health of the people can be regarded as even approximately satisfactory. It seems to bo recognised that no further general advance can be expected until tno people themselves have been aroused to a sense of their responsibilities. There are people, no doubt, where selfsufficiency or apathy is like armour plate, and bomb-proof. Like the poor they will doubtless be always with us. But reason makes its advances, not without hope, to the great majority, |

and bids them listen, contemplate, and understand. The purpose of a Health Week is to focus public attention on matters of health, and to arouse the sense of personal responsibility in connection therewith. It has been realised that there must be some driving force behind this question of health. The work which is being carried on by health authorities loses much of its effect for want of an adequate response on the part of those on whoso behalf it is performed. “The most pressing need therefore,” we read, “is to emphasise the importance of personal attention to hygiene. The immediate purpose of ‘Health Week’ is to make health during the week the chief-topic of public concern ; to secure the recognition of the fact that disease is a thing which can and should be prevented; to impart sound information as to public and personal hygiene, and to build up a public opinion which will not tolerate a high disease rate or excessive infant mortality, and which feels as a personal reproach the sight of an ill-nourished or neglected child.” Such arguments should make a wide appeal. One of these days they possibly will. In the meantime reiteration seems to be the only method whereby there is any prospect of infpressing them widely upon the public mind, and reiteration in some arresting manner. Hence the origin of “Health Week.” Given the necessary organising enthusiasm the movement should be a success in Dunedin in proportion to the extent to which it is able to divert the deep-seated tendency of the community to go on in its old improvident walf the same interest could be stimulated in public health ‘as is manifested for instance in sport it would have a success so stupendous that the authorities would probably find a positive embarrassment in their opportunities. In the meantime advance towards the goal must needs be gradual, and the outcome of much patient and assiduous educational effort. Speaking recently at, a dinner of the Medical Society, in London Mr Lloyd George embroidered a tribute to the great advance made in preventive medicine with the suggestion that “the great motto for statesmen and for the medical profession should be the co-operation of both with the, community in the spread of the knowledge of how to keep well.” The point of the remark should be sufficiently obvious. It is-an object of the “Health Week” movement to stimulate in people the desire to know how to be healthy, and to impart to them a knowledge of the simple laws of health. In the Old Country the second week of October is to be set apart as “Health Week” this year, and no doubt an effort will be made to have the debut of this crusade in Dunedin synchronise therewith. If, as may be anticipated, the local programme be modelled largely on the lines of that which has been evolved in Great Britain, it will he calculated to afford a surprise in its variety and scope: not in a manner to be considered in any way formidable, but in presenting many features of uncommon interest as well as of instruction.

Only ono fresh notification of pneumonic influenza has been received at the Health Office. This case was in the Waitaki district. The position at the Dunedin Hospital is unchanged.