AN EXAMPLE TO FOLLOW

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 43, 15 November 1918, Page 4

AN EXAMPLE TO FOLLOW

Thk hopeful opinions expressed by the Minister ok Public Health in regard to the prevailing epidemic are to some extent anticipatory. "Whether or not a definite improvement is in evidence, the existing state of affairs in Auckland, Wellington, and elsewhere is still extremely serious. The most promising fact in sight at the moment is that affairs seem to have taken a definite turn for the better in the military training camps. In all three camps the epidemic! is now stated to be declining to some oxtent, though the numbers of men in hospital are still very large. The improvement recorded in the camps carries a lesson for the civil community which should be overlooked. If the epidemic is in fact subsiding in the camps it is evidently for the reason that in these establishments curative and preventive measures arp organised in tho highest possible efficiency. It is by emulating the discipline and orderly methods of the camps that the civil community may expect to rid itself as speedily as possible of the scourge which is nowa.taking.toll of its numbers. It would be the height of folly to regard the first indications of a decline in the epidemic as an excuse for discontinuing or neglecting precautions. People who allow themselves to bo lulkd into carelessness and false security will invite a recrudeßcence of the epidemic, perhaps on a more formid' .able scale than it has yet attained.. Stringent are and will remain necessary until the disease has been completely stamped out. All may contribute to this result by co-operating loyally in the measures that are being taken and recommended by the Health authorities.