SAFEGUARD TO HEALTH.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20288, 22 December 1927, Page 12

SAFEGUARD TO HEALTH.

annual medical overhaul, EARLY DETECTION OF DISEASE.

* (Special to Daily Times.) CHRISTCHURCH, December 21. A suggestion tliat middle-aged persons I should undergo a medical examination once a year was made again to the North Canterbury Hospital and Charitable Aid Board to-dav. In the course -J his report on th 6 'work o f tl)e ™dinm and deep therapy department, Dr P. C. I’cmvick, officer in charge, stated: ! ‘‘ln my reports to the honirl I have j frequently mentioned (hat any patients ! applv for treatment only when their ! disease is so far advanced that neither surgery nor radium can do more than alleviate the condition. I have several times suggested that if niddleaged persons would submi* to a medical examination once every year 1 believe that early I but unsuspected disease would bo detected and prompt treatment might effect a cure. This is s o true in "emale cases that 1 ventured to say that an annual examination would materially reduce the cancer mortality in women. Two years ago I offered the suggestion that if insurance societies would grant r rebate m the premiums of those who presented i. medical examination certificate it _ would not only prove a paying proposition to the societies, but would bo benefit o their clients.” Dr Fenwick then quoted the experience of a Tifo insurance company in America to justify his belief in an annual overhaul. The Rev. J. K. Archer urged that the i press should give prominence to this ad--1 vice.