LIFE SAVING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23205, 1 June 1937, Page 14

LIFE SAVING

WORK OF THE PLUNKET SOCIETY THE PUBLIC INDEBTED To describe the work of the Royal Society for the Health of Women and Children (the Plunket Society) as one of “ life saving ” is no exaggeration, nor is it too much to say that not only the people of New Zealand but also those of the Englishspeaking world are indebted to this movement. For these reasons alone there should be a ready answer to the appeal which has been launched by the society for a sum of £20,000 to provide a new hospital and training ground on the site of the Kari-tane-Harris institution at Anderson’s Bay, to replace the premises which are now too small to cope with the vastly-enlarged scope of the work, It is now 30 years since the society was formed, with the work and the practical support of Sir Truby King as its basis. Since then, the progressive development of the movement in New Zealand and, indeed, to most of the civilised quarters of the globe has been remarkable and a tribute to the soundness of the methods it advocates. “It would surely not _bo an extravagance of speech,” said Lord Bledisloe on one occasion, “ to say that there is no movement in the world to-day which is contributing more to the physical well-being of humanity, and no living man who lias done more for child welfare, and consequently for raising the standard of human physique, than your distinguished fellow countryman Sir Truby King. The time will assuredly come when, with clearer vision than the world possesses today, it will be universally recognised that the unemployables, the degenerates, the work-shy, aye, and the incorrigible cranks of the world owe their depressing abnormality, and the heavy public burden which their condition involves very largely, perhaps preponderantly, to prenatal or infantile mismanagement arising from maternal ignorance or neglect.” Since pre-natal care and infantile treatment are the special concerns of the society, any assistance to the cause may well be regarded as an investment for the future.