RHEUMATISM IN INDUSTRY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19695, 23 January 1926, Page 10

RHEUMATISM IN INDUSTRY.

Among maladies which are man’s worst enemies a new respect is being accorded t j rheumatism. The medical world is discovering more about its causes and Ministers of Health are learning, to their sorrow, more about its costliness. At a recent meeting in London of tlie International Society of Medical Hydrology a discussion took place on the treatment of rheumatism in industry. The statement was made by Sir George Newman, Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry or Health in Great. Britain, that no less than £2,0(10,000 was being spent on act benefit per annum under the group of rheumatic diseases and that the loss of time among the insured population duo to this group of diseases reached the amazing amount of three million weeks annually. Because of these figures. Sir George Newman added, the Government was compelled to recognise that these conditions imposed upon the State a burden quite as serious as was due to som© of the well-known diseases, such as cancer and tuberculosis- There was need, be urged, for more active and organised, treatment, which was at present entirely inadequate: it was important to realise that the point had. been readied at which it was necessary in all countries to deal with this malady. Another medical contributor to the discussion stated that rheumatism in childhood was responsible for an enormous amount of heart-disease, and was the recruiting ground from which many middle-aged invalids were drawn. It is calculated that in Great Britain there are between 45,000 and 50,000 children of school age with organic heart disease. If ail this is not very cheering it should serve to emphasise sufficiently the fact that rheumatism ranks among the truly formidable diseases. In 1924 a special committee which investigated the incidence of rheumatism on behalf of the Ministry of Health at Home reported that one sixth of the total invalidity for which insurance benefit was given was due to diseases which are classed generically as rheumatic, and that half of these eases were due to chronic arthritis. Some countries are more fortunate than others in respect of the prevalence of rheumatism. France, for example, escapes comparatively lightly, while in Great Iritain, Holland, and Sweden the disease is very prevalent. That it is all too prevalent in New Zealand also is a matter of common knowledge, and, in the light of the disquieting facts relative to the vast mass of debility aid ill-health and loss of industrial efficiency due to the disease, the interest of this country in a crusade against rheumatism should be manifest. It has been justly stated that a better knowledge of the causal agents and a better understanding of the remedial treatments of rheumatism and especially, of articular rheumatism, would mean much to the world. Optimism, even when it is clearly tinged with fanciful exaggeration, invites respect. The situation of the Liberal Party in the Home Country might, to the average mind, seem to l>e almost desperately forlorn. A shadow cf its former strength in -Parliament (though admittedly under-represented < in relation to its voting strength in the country), with dubious.leadership and without an appealing policy, it is a sorry phalanx of the odd Gladstonian and Asquithian armies. But “nil desperandum” is the immutable motto of that born enthusiast, Mr Lloyd George, whose, optimism has often been justified by events, though his political star has not teen conspicuously ascendant of late years. His position as party leader may be indeterminate and precarious, but his faith in the shibboleths of his youth, to which, according to some caustic ciitics, he has not been consistently faithful, is fervently strong at present. “Liberalism is not going to perish; on the contrary, it will count for more at the next election than at any since 1900.’* Brave words!—almost staggering in their boldness when it is remembered what the Liberals under Sir Henry Campbell Banerman achieved at the polls in 1906. Perhaps Mr Lloyd George has been misreported, for the idea of a retrieval of the fortunes of 20 years ago is beyond the. optimistic limit. The number of Liberals returned in 1906 was 356; in 1924 it was 40. The news of the rejection of the proposal to establish an alliance between the Liberal and Labour forces is welcome, but it is difficult to recognise promising signs of independent Liberal progress. The Queensland Rhodes Scholar who was threatened with expulsion from the University of Oxford on account of his propaga nist propensities took a sensible, if not heroic, view of his personal situation. His ideals fall short of martyrdom. If he has not assimilated the ancestral spell of the “home of lost causes and forsaken beliefs and unpopular names and impossible loyalties,’’ he recognises the folly of trying to resist established authority. Why should /he kick against the pricks and suddenly relinquish his academic studies for honours in politics, philosophy, and economics? His place on the honours list may be the higher for compulsory abstention from seditious activity, as he will have more time for pursuits directly related to his privileged and subsidised residence at Oxford. Probably, the Vice-Chancellor, receiving the promise of future good behaviour, may have smiled indulgently at the culprit’s statement that the latest administration of discipline was “quite in accordance with the conservative traditions of the Oxford authorities, who are notorious for their resistance to the new and vital ideas of each succeeding generation.’’ As the vice-Chancellor of another university once said, “None of us is infallible, —not even the youngest of us!” In point of. fact, Oxford policy and administration have been greatly liberalised in recent vears, and the notion that the university is managed on obsolete lines is itself obsolete. If the license of disloyal and seditious propagandism is still discouraged, sane minds will approve the restriction, and the shade of Cecil Rhodes will not murmur.