SUNSHINE AND AIR.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XLIX, Issue 151, 12 September 1928, Page 2

SUNSHINE AND AIR.

A HEALTHIER NATION. NO MAGIC IN DRUGS. LONDON, July 24. Some 1400 delegates, representing most of the European countries, the Dominions, and the United States, have been attending the annual concress of the Royal Sanitary Institute, at Plymouth. In delivering the inaugural address Viscount Astor declared: “To-dav fewer lives are lost by plagues, including small-pox, in a year, than are lost through accident on a successful hank holiday.” This wonderful improvement in public health, ho declared, had been achieved by makin? more available for everyone sunlight, fresh air, wholesome food and pure water, rather than by the use of drugs. “The ‘expert’ has changed his mode of treatment,” he continued. “In the dark ages we cfdled in the witch doctor and the medicine man with their incantations and secret concoctions, which must have been just as effective as the love philtres of the alchemist and the contents of the witches’ cauldrons. Hone are such magical cures, just as surely as is the practice of universal bleeding, whether by the opening of arteries or the use of sucking leeeheb. “More and more is the use of drugs being restricted and limited in number and in their application. Leading physicians tell us that they do not understand the ultimate effects of most of the eontents of the Pharmacopoeia, and that they inerea«inglv trust to a few well-tried and well-known therapeutic agents. At the moment ultra-violet rays and vitamin D, the use of vita glass, are in fashion —they help rickettv children to become straight-legged, and apparently even broken-down thoroughbred horses to win races. We are giving the human body more of the sun’s rays than it has hnd since we covered it with clothes and hid it in houses, and kept the sun out with our smoke and fog. “Yet, alas, nothing has shown up so much as the short-sightedness of our fellow-countrymen as the way in which we have allowed, and still allow, a Black Country to grow up. After much delay Parliament has timidly passed an Act to reduce the smoke nuisance, hut feared to tackle it adequately. Of recent years, too, we are realising more and more the value of clean bodies, to such an extent that the greater use of water is creating a distinct and new problem in many districts.”