TOPICS OF THE TIMES

Southland Times, Issue 19657, 6 October 1922, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE TIMES

Declaring that education is the greatest means of attacking disease, dirt and destitution, Dr Andrew Balfour, writing in the Empire Review, asks: “Is there any use bolstering up feeble lives? Are we right in striving to perpetuate the puny folk of the human race? Is not the old law of the survival of the fittest what was intended, and are we not flying in the fac*e of Providence in trying to upset it?” It is not altogether easy to answer such an accusation, ho proceeds. “Let me only say that the more we work at the problem the more we find tha|. the hereditary transmission of disease plays a comparatively small part in diminishing our vjtality. Doubtless something may still be said in favour of feeble constitutions from the time of birth, in

support of the theory of diathesis. There seem to be children born with little or no resisting powers, but even here how much depends on the health of the father or mother? A virile stock produces virile offspring, and we, in our measures of hygiene, aim at virility. We know beyond all doubt that what saps virility in early life is, as a rule, bad feeding, bad housing, or infection with pathogenic organisms. Hence there can be no question but that we are right in our efforts to save the weakling, if only because wc stamp out foci of disease in a humane manner. It is the duty of the physician to save life; it is the duty of the hygienist to preserve it. We may for a space pass through a bad period and perpetuate lives which lack vitality and bodily strength, but eventually we should reach a higher plane of efficiency and compass a better and a saner world. Again let us remember that among these feeble lives there may be one or more possessing that spark of genius which means so much to mankind. A child’s death is always unutterably sad, for no one can say what that child might have become. I grant you that not once in a million times would the life develop into anything out of the common, but there is just the chance that we lose a Pasteur, a Lister, some great brain, some outstanding personality, c some benefactor of humanity.” Attention has recently been attracted by the recommendations of the General Board of the United States Navy for a largely increased appropriation of naval aviation, to the importance attached by the naval authorities to this branch of the service, and to their feeling that the, American Navy has not kept pace with other services in that respect. Recently the Washington Herald gave prominence to an article describing somewhat in detail naval aviation plans. The international fight for supremacy of the air, the paper says, has begun because of the failure of the Washington Conference to impose any limitation on air forces. Hence competition between the United States, Great Britain, and Japan has been transferred from the water to the air. Referring to British and Japanese plans, and showing that the United States must adopt the same policy or be left hopelessly behind in the race, the Herald says the tentative /American programme contemplates the construction of sufficient air machines to assure 500 on either coast and approximately 1000 machines at strategic points in the interior; the construction of sufficient aeroplanes for two aircraft carriers, into which two of the battle cruisers are being converted under the terms of the Washington treaty, and the provision, of adequate reserves; the equipment of every first line ship with aeroplanes, launching catapult, and landing gear; and an increase of the air force to 2500 officers and 40,000 men. As the Administration is pledged to economy, and this programme, if carried out, would involve a capital outlay of millions, it is proposed, says the Herald, to spread expenditures over a series of years in the way arranged for the naval programme of 1916.