THE USE OF DRUGS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22730, 16 November 1935, Page 21

THE USE OF DRUGS

ADVICE TO DOCTORS Too much reliance is placed on the bottle of medicine, too little on hygiene and the prevention of disease. Sir George Newman, late chief medical officer to the Ministry of Health, made this statement to doctors and patients in an address on the "New Purpose of Medicine," at the inaugural session of the Welsh National School of Medicine at Cardiff, says the Daily Telegraph. Doctors, he said, _ should enlarge the narrow purpose of directing their almost exclusive attention to morbid conditions and the remedy of such conditions mainly in drugs. He added: " This tendency in professional custom has misled public opinion, and the patient himself becomes accustomed to think in terms of disease and drugs. Hence there has arisen a pernicious and false reliance on the bottle of medicine or proprietary patents. " The widespread fetish of quackery in its forms may be partly due to the unconscious misdirection of doctors themselves. People are beginning to feel that they need something more than the doctors are giving them, and therefore look elsewhere." Sir George spoke of doctors as being missionaries of health. They should be the first effective teachers of hygiene and the principal interpreters of preventive medicine. One of the most effective means of preventive medicine was the National Health Insurance scheme. Although death rates in Britain were exceptionally low, various scourges had been banished, and the national health stood higher to-day than at any time in history, the nation had by no means solved all its health problems. Industrial and social evolution seemed to brine new ones.