The Prevention of Disease

Southland Times, Issue 24596, 19 November 1941, Page 4

The Prevention of Disease

THE GOVERNMENT’S experiment in the treatment of tuberculosis, outlined yesterday in a message from Wellington, is a welcome step forward in preventive medicine. It is also a reminder of the large and comparatively unexplored field which awaits the attention of the Department of Health. Hitherto the emphasis has been allowed to: rest heavily on curative methods. The universal practitioner service, as visualized by the architects of the original scheme, was interpreted in some quarters as an endorsement by the Government of a negative health policy. There were critics, including well-known doctors, who argued that if hospital and medical attention were available for those who could not afford to pay for it the resources of the State could be more usefully employed in organizingpreventive measures against the .more obvious enemies of the nation’s health. Whether or not this was a fair criticism, it is indisputably true that the wider availability of curative treatment (in theory, if not always in actual fact) has confronted the Government with the need, which may be increasingly urgent, to relieve the congestion in hospitals and surgeries. This can be done in two ways: by extending the methods of preliminary treatment, and by educating the public in questions of diet and hygiene. The ideal way to check the spread . of certain diseases is to foster the habit of periodical examinations, and it is this principle which appears to have been adopted experimentally in Wellington. If diseases like tuberculosis can be detected in their potential stages they can usually be cured fairly rapidly, and persons who are found to be susceptible to

them can be warned against remaining in unsuitable occupations. At the present time, no doubt, a universal system of examination would be difficult to establish, since the country’s medical resources are sufficiently taxed by the demands of war and illness. But as science devotes more attention to the diagnosis and early treatment of disease it should be possible to encourage, or to organize, a series of communal health surveys. Under present conditions the average person does not consult a doctor until his symptoms have become painfully apparent, and by that time his complaint may be deeply rooted. An early discovery of infection means that the patient can be treated at small trouble to himself and small cost to the State. Bound up with these developments are the rules of healthy living, which are still too imperfectly known. The best of all ways to cheat disease is to eat 'he foods and cultivate the habits which give health to the blood and strength to the nerves. There is a growing interest in such matters, and something L already being done to stimulate it by radio talks addressed primarily to housewives. But this important work is still only in its earliest phase. The prevalence of tuberculosis among Maoris, of goitre among European women, and of bad teeth among both sexes and all age groups are a few of the facts which indicate the magnitude of the tasks, educational and preventive, now awaiting the health authorities in New Zealand.