CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 24, 22 July 1911, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

HALF-A-MILLIOX DEATHS. When we have a few cases of Asiatic bubonic plague in our midst we beaome alarmed and kill rats and clean up backyards. When the plague attacks the populations of Asiatic countries, the people look upon the visitation as inevitable, and don't clean up their backyards or front streets or take any precautions. The great mass of the population of India, for instance, are so poor and so fatalistic that they believe they must suffer as theiT. forefathers suffered through all the dim ages of the past. To the average white man who reads that 650,G00 Hindoos have died in the past six months from bubonic plague, the fact probably concerns him less tlian the paragraph that tells him that one white man has been killet} by a train, but if one imagines for one moment the death in six months of over half the population in New Zealand he will grasp the terrible nature of the visitation. The visitations of diseases in India, even if they are not less frequent, are not so terrible as of old, for medical science, both imported and native, lias done much to fight it. In affected areas in tke great empire, every British soldier is j pressed into the medical service, or at lease he becomes one of a great burying) party. The incalculable filth of Asiatic countries is, one might believe, one of the reasons why disease is so virulent. One medical man who fought pestilence in India remarked that even Bombay > "was built on 100 yards deep of fester-1 ing filth sufficient to poison all existing 1 humanity." People who live in empty countries like Canada, South Africa, { Australia or New Zealand, may hold the j cheerful opinion that something is necessary to keep the Indian population I in check. Despite disease, however, India gained 25 million people in ten years. Now that statesmen believe that the piping times of everlasting peace are to be ushered in, and now that physicians predict the absolute death of all 1 the great diseases, one wonders where the ever-increasing Asiatic is going to get room to grow his rice. A cablegram like the one about the half-million deaths in India seems very like an afterthought. The Hindoos have been dying in thousands for half a year, and it*has occurred to the Indian officials to say so at last. But we know all about the speech a dock orator at Cardiff made the other day. That was important.

A RAY OF HOPE. At the end of last year there were 400,000 people known' to be suffering from consumption or lung disease of one form or another in the United Kingdom. Sixty thousand die annually from consumption and thirty thousand from other forms of lung trouble. Xeariy two million pounds are spent by the' Poor Law authorities on the relief of consumption, and the money spent by private corporations and societies is incalculable. Consumption is largely the result of poverty that is to say, a much larger proportion of poor people than well-to-do people are attacked. Mr. John Burns makes the astonishing and highly gratifying prophesy that tuberculosis will be killed within twenty-five years. It lias (so it is asserted) declined by 19 per cent, in England and by 24 per cent, in Scotland and Ireland and by 30 per cent, in London! The last figures are the most eloquent, for they prove that people may be massed in the largest crowd on earth and yet be freer from a disease (and many diseases) than people living in rural surroundings. London is. indeed, the healthiest great city on earth, and' naturally enough is the centre of the magnificent organisations tlwt without any self-seeking are fighting to kill the pestilences. Success in diminishing the death-rate from tuberculosis at Home spells success in diminishing it in the dominions. Tho proportion of consumptives in the dominions is within 2 per cent, of the proportion at Home, and the same forces are at work for the subjection of the disease. Whether or no the disease is wiped out in twenty-five years depends not so much on medical treatment as on personal knowledge and normal living. As we have said before the campaign against consumption is a campaign against ignorance.

YOUNG NEW ZEAL ANDERS. The medical inspection of boys and youn" men for enrolment in the territorial forces is one of the most useful and important phases of the new scheme, but it is evidently going to be an unpleasant revelation to many parents. The inspections are being carried out in Wellington by seven physicians of hiwli standing. Writing of the medical L spection the New Zealand Times savs: "It is too early to give any definite figures in regard to the actual causes of rejection, because so many have yet to present themselves before the doctors, but some phases of the results are interesting to record as bearing 011 the physique of the average New Zealander.' He has bad teeth, to begin with. This defect, however, is not counted in the rejection as would be the case for admission to the Army at Home. Most of the lads have teeth missing. Some are very bad in this respect. Amongst the territorials there have been rejections for heart failure, that is, in ages ranging from eighteen to twenty-one. On Monday night 3 per cent, were declined on that account, though, of course, when the general average is completed, this percentage may be reduced. But what strikes one.in viewing the lads of fourteen and over, as they stand before the

doctor with their chests and backs bare, [ is the large number afflicted with rick- \ ets, due to deficient nutrition in early childhood. Some of the little fellows presented deformed chests that were a very sad sight. One medical officer consulted remarked, 'Bad feeding—artificial f food.' What's the remedy? 'Physical drill will cure a good deal of that,' he replied, 'and the cadet course provides for physical culture.' Many of the boys looked as if they had never handled a pair of clubs or dumb-bells. They looked, too, as if in childhood they had never had a fair chance. Now grown to fourteen and sixteen, their physical appearance tells a tale of early neglect. Chests want expanding, limbs want strengthening by systematic training; in fact, general physical development needed."' On the score of physical improvement only, the military system will be a real boon. Tho "rejects" will, it is hoped, be encouraged in every possible way to get fit enough for military service.