MAORI HEALTH STANDARDS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17956, 7 December 1932, Page 6

MAORI HEALTH STANDARDS

COMPARATIVE EXAMINATIONS DR. hURBOTT’S INVESTIGATION Of substantial interest to all parents —pukeha and Alaori—are ’the tabulated results of a long series of comparative health statistics compiled by Hr. H. B. Xurbott, medical officer of health for the Last Cape district, as a result of his investigations on health conditions among the children of the various Maori schools. Dr. Turbott’s figures have been published in the annual report of the Director-General of Health, now before Parliament, and they have a direct bearing upon the East Coast and Poverty Bay areas, as showing that the standards of health among the Alaori poopia are not interior to those of the pakelia, and indeed that on the average the Maori child of school age represents a better pnysical type than the child of the white race. In tho course of his examinations during the past year, Dr. Turbott has had 1589 Maori children under supervision, and his conclusions, as quoted in the report, are that the Alaori child shows superiority in the absence of severe malnutrition, in incidence of perfect teeth, and in posture. The European child shows more evidence of personal care, as in tile lessened incioeiice of skin disease ami in greater evidence of conservative dentistry. An important point m tiie comparison was that Maori children showed much less liability to goitre than the pakelia child, tho percentages affected being respectively: Alaori 7 per cent., and white 3G per* cent. A few of the outstanding items in the comparative tabulation are quoted herewith, the percentages of Alaori children affected being shown first in each instance, the average percentage for pukeha children being represented by the second figure: Organic disease of the heart, 0 7, 1.3 j functional disease of the heart, 0.0, 0.4; first-class nutrition, '0.3, 31.4; sub-normal nutritiop, 1.09, C. 3; total deformities of trunk and chest, 2.3, 4.7; club-feet, 0.19, 0.03; pediculosis, 9.2, 0.5; scabies, 15.1, 0.2; impetigo, 5.7, 0.8; other skin diseases, 1.4, 3.7; defects in jaw and palate, 0.1, 0.3; perfect sets of primary teeth, 3.2, 1.6; perfect sets of secondary teeth, 8.7, 0.6; defects of nose and throat, nasal obstruction, 5.7, 8.1; enlarged tonsils, 19.2, 26.1; goitre, 7.08, 30.05; defective vision, 7.2, 9.2.

Tt will be noted from the foregoing that apart from the striking difference in the (percentages of goitre-effected children, the Maoris have a. glided ad' initage in r" c >ect of teeth, tonsils and eyesight, while in respect of deformities of trunk and chest, and their re-

sn nise to nutrition, the native children are on the average also superior to the pakelia.