THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, October 26, 1937. THE LENGTHENING SPAN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23332, 26 October 1937, Page 8

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, October 26, 1937. THE LENGTHENING SPAN

It is not possible to emphasise unduly the importance of education for better health. In enlightened countries the world over the awakening of public interest in problems affecting the health of the people has been accompanied by organised effort to promote higher standards of physical fitness. Movements that have been progressing quietly for perhaps the past half-century seem suddenly to have received a notable stimulus. Governments have had calls made upon them for the extension of social services of all kinds. The expenditure of public money in that direction has increased to an extent that could scarcely have been contemplated a few years ago, with the result that in most British countries and in some others there is to-day a really remarkable range of Statemaintained services available for public utilisation. Naturally there has been a marked effect on health standards. The chairman of the Central Council for Health Education in Great Britain has just been recalling that in 1875 the average expectation of life in England and Wales was 41 years for males and 44 years for females. To-day the figures are 57 years and 61 years respectively. The Prime Minister, Mr Chamberlain, when he inaugurated early this month in London a national campaign to encourage the wider use of health services, commented that in the past fifty years the standardised death rate had been lowered from 18.7 to 9.2 per 1000, the infant mortality rate from 138 to 59, and the mortality rate for tuberculosis from 2450 to 657 per 1,000,000. The expectation of life of a new-born child to-day, he added impressively, was 19 years longer than it was when he was born. Those are arresting figures. • They illustrate not only the extent to which scientific 1 investigation has increased knowledge within what may be broadly described as the sphere of preventive medicine, but also the degree to which such knowledge has been applied by public authorities to secure the well-being of the people. To such services as drainage, refuse disposal, street cleansing and the provision of a wholesome water supply the modern community owes its relative immunity from diseases which, in bygone years, used to take a tremendous toll of human life. Mr Chamberlain, in the speech from which we have already quoted, did not have to go back very far for an illustration of that particular point. He referred to the cholera epidemic which visited England in 1866, causing 14,000 deaths. To-day, he added, thanks to the improvement in the services named, cholera was unknown in Western civilisation, though the individual took no special precautions to protect himself. It is probably true to say, in elaboration of that final comment, that the average individual gives very little thought to the health amenities that are placed within his reach. He accepts them as his right, since he has to pay for the maintenance of them, and quite possibly reflects not at all on the miracle of organisation by which the good health of his immediate environment is assured. But the vital statistics are an infallible indication of the progress made in the science of living healthily. Man’s span of life is extending, and will continue to do so as he learns to make better use of the facilities for protecting himself which the modern State properly deems it its duty to provide. For not all of the health services are brought to the individual without effort on his part. There are those, many of them comparatively new developments—such as the ante-natal, dental, cancer and tuberculosis clinics—which demand, for their fullest employment, the active personal co-operation of the individual subiect. When public services of that nature are used, in this country as elsewhere, to a vastly greater extent than they are at the moment, there will be a new vigour in the nation’s march towards health and happiness, and there will be. too, a longer average enjoyment of those supreme blessings.