HEALTH

Te Ao Hou, March 1960, Page 57

HEALTH Although too much preventable sickness still afflicts the people, the general health pattern has shown steady improvement over the last twenty years. This latter has been due to: (1) Better housing conditions and sanitation with improved domestic and personal hygiene. (2) The untiring efforts of District Nurses and Medical Officers in the preventive field. (3) An increasing willingness on the part of the people to seek medical treatment. Until recent years too many were apprehensive of modern medical methods and were reluctant to attend a nurse or doctor or enter hospital. This was due to a suspicion of pakeha methods or a fear of tapu infringements and a belief that only a tohunga could cure a ‘Maori’ disease. This attitude is slowly changing because of the dramatic results obtainable from potent anti-bacterial drugs and modern surgery and an appreciation of this fact by most of the people. Many still prefer the empirical treatment and incantations of a tohunga—especially in mental cases or where a disease has unusual features or proves unresponsible to modern treatment. Other patients after receiving modern treatment attend a tohunga ‘just to make sure and look after the Maori side’. I will now enumerate some of the more common ailments seen:—