WAR ON DISEASE.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 November 1923, Page 5

WAR ON DISEASE.

RAVAGES OF V.D. STRESSED. DIFFICULTIES OF CANCER. YOUTH FOR THE AGED. By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Received Nov. 13, 8.25 p.m. Melbourne Nov. 13. In his presidential address at the Medical Congress, Dr. G. A. Syme, referring to the ravages of venereal diseases, .said it was estimated that thirty per cent, of the population of Australia was affected, representing an economic loss of £50,000,000 annually. Despite the profession having made the discovered remedies and preventive measures public, the disease ravaged the community just the same, causing infinite misery to thousands of innocent people, including children, because individual members of the public would not make use of the knowledge given them and would not exercise self-denial and self-control. Referring to the difficulties surrounding the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, he declared that one reason why it so often became so firmly established as to be practically incurable was that, except occasionally in its last stages, it was generally painless. An early radical operation still held the most hope. The essential thing was early diagnosis. THE FEEBLE-MINDED. Dealing with the problem of the feeble-minded, he said it seemed, on biological evidence, that sterilisation was one of the most scientific and rational methods of preventing some oi the great economic loss and social disaster produced by the rapid multiplication of the unfit. He did not claim that sterilisation would abolish mental deficiency, nor that it was the only measure required. Segregation and restraint, with proper care, were necessary. It was fatal to train defective children to the age of eighteen or twen-ty-one and then let them loose on society. He did not recommend that eugenical sterilisation should be enforced by law, except perhaps on those convicted of sexual offences. Voluntary sterilisation, with the consent of all concerned, could and should be tried. On the subject of increasing the duration of human life, he asked even if it were possible would it be desirable, unless youth could be retained as well. Researches, however, suggested that not only might life be prolonged, but even youth restored, by the surgeon’s art. LESS TUBERCULOSIS. Dr. Purdy, Sydney sity health officer, read a paper on tuberculosis in relation to social and economical conditions. He said in England and Australia the death rate from tuberculosis had been reduced by about one half during the oast forty years. In New South Wales in 11880 the’ death rate from pulmonary tuberculosis was 108 and in 1922 it had fallen to fifty-four per hundred thousand.

Dr. Purdy, Sydney city health officer, 3357 cases ‘to the end of 1922, and of these 2149 were males and 1208 females, and in all ages, except from fifteen to twenty-four years, the number of males was greater than the females. In both sexes the incidence was highest between twenty-tyre and thirty-four years of age. Deaths from pthisis were most numerous between the ages of twentyfive and thirty-four. He concluded: “The remarkable decline in the tuberculosis rate synchronises with the improvement in the social and economic status o f the masses.”