PUBLIC HEALTH ,

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23331, 25 October 1937, Page 7

PUBLIC HEALTH ,

ACHIEVEMENTS IN BRITAIN HISTORY OF ELABORATE FACILITIES (British Official Wireless) RUGBY, Oct. 23. (Received Oct. 24, at 6.30 p.m.) The achievements of public health services during the past 100 years, including an addition of 16 years to the average expectations ot lite. were described by the chairman of the Central Council for Health Education, who recalled in a speech that in 1937, the year of Queen Victorias accession, the total sum voted for public health services for the whole country was £ 2000. The first rnedical officer of health was appointed in Liverpool 10 years later, and since then a vast, elaborate system of health facilities had been built up, providing for the safeguarding of health and the treatment of diseases at every stage of life. As a result the general death rate had declined by one-half and diseases such as cholera and typhus had been wiped out. . In 1875 the average expectation of life in England and Wales was 41 years for males and 44 years for females. To-day the ages were 57 and 61 respectively. The infantile death rate had fallen from 156 per 1000 live births m 1900 to 59 pei 1000 last year. As recently as 1912 the death rate from tuberculosis was 112 per 100,000. To-day it was about 60.