CHRISTMAS SEAL

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 129, 27 November 1929, Page 13

CHRISTMAS SEAL

MESSAGE OF HOPE

APPEAL FOR DELICATE CHILDREN

?<ABLY ISSUE OF STAMP

The Christmas Seal, a combined postage and anti-tuberculosis stamp, will be procurable at all Post Offices throughout the Dominion early in December, on. a date which will be publicly notified. The design has been completed, but the printing of many hundreds of thousands of stamps necessarily takes some time. Every effort is being made to expedite the issue of the seal.

Half of the fund derived from the stamps will bo dovotcd to the campaign against tuberculosis, including the establishment of health camps for delicate or undernourished children, or children who have a tendency to contract tuberculosis, or whose surroundings may be such as to lead to their contracting the infection. The Christmas Seal movement has been most successful in all the leading countries of the ' world. Every citizen, even those with the most slender means, can help by placing a seal on his or her letters or cards of greeting during the few weeks before Christmas. Each seal means the gift of a penny for a most worthy cause.

ITor several years past articles have from time to time been published in tho "Evening Post" giving an account of tbe start, progress, and objects of the movement widely known in the leading countries of the world as the " Christmas Seal," which is, as stated, a combined postage and public health stamp, half of the funds from which are chiefly devoted to preventive medicine, especially to the furtherance of the antituberculosis campaign. Tho recommendation that New Zealand should adopt the system was made by Mr. G. M'Namara, Secretary of the Post and Telegraph Department. As a means of assisting in a branch of public health activity, the proposal received tho support of the Health Department. With the approval of the Postmaster-General (the Hon. Jas. B. Donald) and the Minister of Health (the Hon. A. J. Stallworthy), and the endorsement of Cabinet, it has been arranged that Christmas Seals will be made available. The Minister of Health has made a strong personal appeal to the public to support the movement, which should result in a further improvement in the public health l>y reducing the incidence cf tuberculosis, mainly, in the first instance, by the establishment of permanent health camps, medically supervised, for delicate and undernourished children or children who have a tendency to contract tuberculosis. It is in childhood that this disease usually makes its first appearance. • Sir William Osier, the distinguished physician, in an address to medical men, referring to tuberculosis, said: "The leadership of the tattle against the scourge- is in your hands. Much has been done; much remains to do. By early diagnosis, and prompt, systematic treatment of individual eases, by striving in every ■way to improve the social condition of the poor, by joining actively in the •work of the local and national antituberculosis societies you can help in tbe most important and the most hopeful campaign ever undertaken ty the profession." ' <• -■„ . ■ • • The following article- has Toeen contributed by a medical practitioner who has had large experience in the treatment of tuberculosis, and who at present is in charge of a sanatorium :— IS THIS SUFFERING- INEVITABLE?

The festive season of Xmas is drawing near —the time when our perhaps latent generosity is stirred, when expressions of brotherly love find vent— ■when peace and goodwill echo throughout, the world. Xmas is usually a day of happiness for hospital patients (and not least, we trust, for those in the sanatoria), where ■brightness and cheerfulness are eagerly welcomed as a pleasant distraction by those separated so long from their home ties. The end of the year suggests a ■backward glance and "attendance on a sick bed being a great breeder of reflections," we find ourselves surveying the situation. We see how this Xmas, as. at each preceding one, our institutions are full of physical failures, those who have no chance at present of swimming in the river of life flowing so swiftly along.

As we look at the bright, responsive faces of these fellow wayfarers from childhood to age, many questions are suggested to us. Is all this suffering inevitable? Is it part of a universal scheme —when'did the stumble come for this one —why did it come? Are these people victims of early infection always? Is there some definite nutritional lack at some period of life? Is it to some extent a temperamental error, or purely physical? Is it perhaps a combination of causes? —and so on. "What is the future of those who leave our institution? We see those who through necessity have gone on bravely trying to fight a losing game, and others who through want of knowledge have overdrawn on their physical capital. We see the Maori race being depleted— their customs clashing with our civilisation. THE TUBERCULAR CHILD. The germ which is responsible- for tuberculosis is familiar to us, and we know the predisposing factor —deterioration of health which makes the invasion of that germ possible in the human body. What is the solution of ;this, one of the world's most urgent problems? Charles Dickens, immortal novelist, with his keen observation and sympathetic understanding of social difficulties, has portrayed for us the tubercular child in all its pathos for us. Who cannot call to mind little Nell, Paul Dombcy, and Tiny Tim, gentle, lqveable, physically ineffectual, each in different circumstances trying bravely but/feebly to pursue his way through life, yet each a misfit to his environment. The literary genius could create the picture —it is left' to this and each succeeding generation to ensure for every child a healthy and jpyous existence. All great reforms have been brought about by a consideration of existing error. In New Zealand our efforts towards the betterment of children have been based on an appreciation of adult misery and sufiEering, the foundation of which has beera laid in childhood. In the last twenty years much has been accomplished along health linos. Infants and children have been rescued from errors iri feeding, clothing, and hygiene, and bodily defects corrected. Dress has be«n revolutionised, and women at any rate have dispensed with heavy, tight clothes, allowing access of air and sunlight to the surface of the body, stimulating and reinvigorating it. PeopJe tave. learned the value of fresh ta their homes. "SY.iyiBOL OF HELP." The obviwasly sick will we trust always claim the world's sympathy and help, but it requires courageous hope to face the prevention of disease, radiated by that vision without which weare told a people perish. . -There are not wanting agencies to help Stumbling humanity along the road; surely the people of New Zealand can. add a united effort to raise a fund to provide measures for stamping out tuberculosis, which in the light of our jw<:isent-day_ knowledge we regard as a

proveutable disease, but which for so long has been regarded as the scourge of mankind.

The Christmas seal has come- as the [ viiiible_ symbol of that help. By its effort it is hoped, among other considerations to bring into existenco rest homes for debilitated children—that is potentially tubercular children. Apart from the protection of the child from early infection, we know that nutrition is the most vital problem we have to consider. It is a social and an economic question. We- trust that these rest camps will be a practical illustration of how to live. Other countries are keenly alive to the preventive aspect of tuberculosis in its manysidedness. Let us not lag behind in our effort to do what is humanly possible, and at this season o fthe year to remember those words which have rung down the ages "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren ye have done it unto Me."

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —Hay I beg a small space in your paper to ask, where are the "Christmas Seal Stamps?" and why are they not on the market for the "Christmas and New Year mail to England?" For my part I should havo bought at least a dozen, and there are hundreds who no doubt would have done the same. I called at our local Post Office last Thursday and they were not on sale, that being the last mail for delivery in Scotland on New Year's Day. It is a pity, for there will be many who like myself have very little correspondence in New Zealand, and therefore will have no cause to buy the stamps and interest will have evaporated by Christmas, 1930.—1 am, etc.,

DISAPPOINTED.

[Inquiry from the Head Office of the- Postal Department shows that the Christinas Seals will be issued early in December.l