WAR MYSTERY OF MILLIONS

Waihi Daily Telegraph, Volume XXXXI, Issue 9640, 27 June 1941, Page 2

WAR MYSTERY OF MILLIONS

BRITAIN HEALTHIER IN WAR | THAN IN PEACE-TIME WHAT IS THE REASON? LONDON, May 12. The United States are sending to Britain a committee of American medical men to try and find out why the people have come through the winter’s “blitz” with better health than in the years of peace. Medical men generally are completely baffled by the nation’s fitness. They feared that, after nights of crowding in airraid shelters and exposure to all weathers on A.R.P. and tire-watching, epidemics would sweep the country like a prairie (ire. In fact, there have been fewer cases of scarlet fever, diphtheria, pneumonia, and typhoid ferer, and only half the mini- | her of deaths from influenza. Whooping cough and meningitis have alone been rather more prevalent than usual. Britain’s own doctors offer various explanations of the mystery, among them the dispersal of densely populated areas, the improved system of health supervision, the spread of education in preventive measures, fewer people at “the pictures” and in other public places. All, however, are agreed that the busy, hazardous life led by 45,000,000 people leaves them neither the time nor the inclination brood over minor ailments. The war has taken them “out of themselves.”