OUR BABIES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17455, 5 February 1925, Page 5

OUR BABIES.

l By HYGEIA.) Publish*- 4 under the auspices of tha Royal New Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children. It is wiser to put up a fence at the top oT a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom." IN FA N’TIJ jE PA R A LA SIS. As several cases of infantile paralysis have been notified in the AA'ellington district, and there seemed a danger that the disease might assume epidemic form, the following communication to the public was issued by the Director-General of Health and the Director of Child AVelfare. If parents will co-operate with the Health Department, and follow the advice given. we feel sure that the disease will soon die out. T H E CO ATM U NI CATION. “ \Yc are being asked with increasing frequency whether there is any special danger to children visiting AYellington on account of the prevalence of infantile paralysis, and similar anxiety is expressed regarding the risks run by children now living in our city and suburbs. “ Both questions call lor practically the same answer: Avoid as far as possible any unnecessary close association of children outside the family circle. From the standpoint of public health it is as incumbent on us to deprecate children being taken unnecessarily •from a region where Hie disease is epidemic to one which is comparatively immune for the time being, as it is to insist on the wrong of bringing a child from an immune to an infected area— indeed, the greater public wrong arises from carelessly causing the disease to be carried from place to place. AY ELL INGTON TH E I.»R ESENT CENTB E. As regards AA'ellington and suburbs, at tlie present moment we cannot too strongly impress on parents and guardians that tlie one and only way to put a. check on the further occurrence and spread of the disease is for all (hose who are responsible to do everything in their power to keep children out of crowds and assemblages of all sorts until the epidemic has passed, which is sure to take place in a short time. AA'ellington district happens now to be tlie main focus, but, as has happened before, some other centre of population may yet show an equal or larger number of cases. A hopeful point in this connection is the fact that where a locality has been hard hit by one epidemic the tendency is for such area to suffer less seriously in the next periodic visitation. Tho following figures are interesting and highly suggestive Total Oases of Infantile Pnrnlvsis in New Zealand Notified from 1915 to 1922. 19Li. ‘ l 9lO. 3 917. 1918 JO 1010 54 0 .1919. 1920. 1921. 1922. 11 Jf> 267 98 Gases to January 7. The present epidemic commenced early in Decembtu, i 924. The incidence week by week has ween as follows : AA’eek ending December 1 , 3 ; December 8,6: December 15. 9; December 22, 9; December 29. 11 ; January 5, 19; January 5 to 7, 9. All the cases so far appear to have

originated in the AYellington health j district. The above figures include j for the week ending December 29 two j cases in Auckland, and for week end- j ing January 5 one case in Dunedin, j These three cases have since been . traced to AA’ellington. * In the epidemic of 1916 the distribution of cases was as follows: — Health Districts.—Auckland : 5-16. AA'ellington, Hawke’s Bay, Nelson, Marlborough, 382. Canterbury-West-land : 65. Otago-Soutbland : 25. Infantile paralysis is generally and typically a disease of late summer and early autumn. Monthly incidence of cases in the 1916 New Zealand epidemic was: January . . .119 February . . 319 March . . . 320 April . . .167 Ala v . . .44 June . . .19 Average for the remaining •six months ... 5 CA US E—SI ’EC T FIC AIIC BO BE. Avoid assemblies of any kind. The immediate cause of infantile paralysis is a specific microbe which lodges mainly in tho nose and throat, and is spread by coughing, kissing, etc., in the same way as whooping cough or any such infectious disease. Owing to the frequency of cases traced in New Zealand to residence at the seaside some people have the idea that the sea air is a factor in causation ; hub this is not so. Children assembled at the seaside in New Zealand for the Christmas and New Year holidays are liable to acquire certain epidemic diseases just as they run special risks by going to the pictures or assemblies of any kind, or when travelling by land K EEP TH E CHI LDR EX FIT. It should not need to be said that infantile paralysis, like any other niicrobic disease, is far more liable to attack children who are not in the best of health, though it may attack a given child who is in perfect health. Tho moral is that at the present time parents and guardians, in AA'ellington, especially, should spare no pains to ensure the best of health to their children by keeping them as much as i possible in tlie open air. by havingopen windows and pure air day and night, and by conforming to all other requirements of robust health—such as proper food and feeding habits, regularity, plenty of exercise. and ample time for rest and sleep. The majority of cases of infantile paralysis occur in the first five years of life—i.o.. before the ordinary school ace. Adults are rarely attacked, but are liable to act as “carriers” after being associated with cases of the dis-