The Wanganui Chronicle. "NULLA DIES SINE LINEA." MONDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1916. WAR AND NATIONAL HEALTH.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LX, Issue 16824, 27 November 1916, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. "NULLA DIES SINE LINEA." MONDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1916. WAR AND NATIONAL HEALTH.

English files just to hand contain, re. ports of the presidential address delivered by Sir James Grichton-Urowne, at a recent conference of the Sanitary Inspector's Association', at Cardiff, it is a stimulating thing to get such conspectus or the war as is contained in this address—stimulating because id opens up a new and vivid perspective of facts that are apt to grow dim when looked at long from faWiiar angles. It is well to be reminded—as this eminent medical man reminds vs — t'liat if the money this war has cose Europe could have been applied to social causes—to securing fair wages, decent houses, better planning of towns, better sanitation, and better ■ health, services—we should indeed have had a new heaven and a new earth. x JNo doubt it ih true that the organisation and sacrifice which have produced the means to wage the war could not have sprung from any motive save that or self-preservation. But when next wr are asked as, a, nation to finance a con. structjve reform* that will cost no more than a day of carnage the memory of our wa.r effort will surely help us to do it quickly and generously. After remarking.jbha't incessant vigiiance, the diligent application of approved methpds of sanitation, and other adjustments to.. new'conditions -had marvellously reduced the ; hign rates of sickness and mortality whioa had hitherto been regarded as inevitable in the field, Sir James (JrichtoGBrowne proceeded to stress the danger of infectious diseases after the wa: "There would," he said, "have to be no relaxation of sanitary vigilance when the war was over, for post-war periods had always proved seasons I favourable to copious crops of infectious disease. Certain of the regions in which tLe war was being carried en were epidemic centres of disease. The soil of France was a hot-bed of microbes, amongst them that of typhoid fever. Dysentry, which devastated our troops in Gallipoli, was rooted in Greece and Egypt; small pox and plague were prevalent in Turkey an Asia Minoi We were not prepared for war. Let us be prepared for peace Soldiers in large numbers would beiuio long be returning home from infectea areas. 'Precautions must be taken. Very important duties would be imposed on sanitary inspectors. Apart* from infectious diseases not much cuma at present be said about the immediate pathological sequel of the war. The specific disease or hidden scourge upon whioL public attention had now, it was to be hoped, been riveted, had hitherto been fostered and propagated liy war. It was not to be expected that it would be otherwise on the present occasion, so there was all tlie more need for the provision of facilities for the curative treatment recommended by the lioyal Commission. Secondary ailments or many kinds woub! follow on wounds, but the most serious , out-look was in the direction of nervous disease, both in respect to fchij military and those who had to do wadwork at home. Turning to the war's wider influence on public health, ha said that there could be no question that the war was eugenically a bad

thing, and that excessive militarism tended to adverse racial modifications. .But there were certain possible countervailing racial advantages from war, particularly where wars were not too protracted. Out of the present war we should emerge transformed in many ways. Nothing would be as'it was before. England would surely be i gieater England, "grappling to its soul with hoops »f steel" those Dominion beyond the seas that had so loyally aided it in its hour of peril. It wouid, be a better organised England, "with some vexed industrial problems solved and more harmonious relations established between the employed and the empLoyer, and it would be ai Jieajthi England—for there would be much social and domestic reconstruction calculated to amend the habits and ameliorate the lot of masses of the people. This, surely, is not too ambitious an outlook. The war has shown as nothing els© could, wLaE a supreme effort we are capable of to save our skins and ito punish those'who threateni as and our friends. If it; is to bring us real victory, it can only be, as a Manchester contemporary puts it, through tho. permanence in time of peace, and on behalf of our own people throughout the Empire, of the co-operation, the sympathy, and, the energy that have been born of it.