‘EXAGGERATED NONSENSE’

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18761, 18 July 1935, Page 6

‘EXAGGERATED NONSENSE’

PEAKS FOK N.Z. HEALTH STATUS IX THE SCHOOLS KEl'l.r TO CITY DOCTOU (Special to the Herald.) Wellington, this day. ‘‘Exaggerated nonsense” is tho term applied "i>y :i public lioaltli officer whose attention was called to Dr. 1.. l>. Gunson's Auckland statement that New Zealanders are physically a B grade people. lie suggested that the soundest criteria were mortality statistics and expectation of life, in respect to which New Zealand ' had an enviable world record. The Health Department's tigures relating lo the examination of 51,000 children on which the Auckland eiiticism was based classed as physical defects such points as uncleanliness, while dental caries accounted for 18.56 per cent., enlarged tonsils for 12 per cent, of the total physical defects. Wild defects causing round shoulders represented a total of 14.37 per cent., while, on the other hand, tuberculosis conditions were found in only .07 per cent, of children, and nervous defects in .48. New-Zealand school children had been subjected to oflicial height and weight tests since 1913, continued the official. The results showed a, steady advance in both respects during 20 years. The only exact corresponding data available related to children of Toronto (Canada) schools, who, while close to New Zealand’s juvenile physical standard. were not quite their equal.