BOOKS HELP REFORM

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 24, 29 January 1938, Page 26

BOOKS HELP REFORM

SERVICE BY NOVELISTS in the nations-health during the century between the; Coronation of Queen Victoria an.d^ that oi King George VI is reviewed .by Sii Arthur MacNalty, Chief Medical Offteer of the Ministry of Health, in his ■annual says' thef^'Daily Teleg'raptf' and Morning Post." _~ ■. • The crude death"' rate.rias fallen from 22.4 to 12.1 per-1000 during the period. The.; infant mortality- rate is', now 59. compared;- with 153.; Sir-Arthur writes: „.._.. "Royal Commissions may recommend; blue books .may. ..be issued, single-heartecl^aina-; able; :exper|s,' ~like Chadwic";^;Simbh;;..Sou&^ and JohElSnow: may. expose,M,<iis|iase and insanitary:- cbriditionsraha iiid|bate paths of'necessary reform; butfall'ithis is of Utflevswail'ji if the ;p.ubhc^con : science is-hotJawakened to*Cc--pperate. ' ;^!The British^publuvin the-:Victorian age read«n6yels..witli;.s.a. purpose^ It was' throughS^heJ-bgbksfdff:four'jnovel-ists—Charle^ Dick"ens,' L'ord'V 'tieac.onsfleld, Charles Kingsley,;and;,-Mrs.. Gaskell—that s the public conscience. -i.was irhpressed and -stirred-1--to. - support health and industrial reform. Preventive medicine owes' these writers a great deal of gratitude." Lord Beaconsfield's novel "Sybil" gave an impulse to factory legislation by its account of child slavery krmines. His Government ■ passed the Public Health Act. the "Magna Carta of public'health." ;...- ■ Charles Kingsley wrote in -"Alton Locke" of the sweated tuberculous tailors, and in • "Two Years Ago" of the ravages of cholera. Most successful in quickening the public conscience was Charles Dickens, with "Oliver Twist," "Martin Chuzzlewit" and "Bleak House." He dealt with the Poor Law, the nursing profession, and slum property. Sir Arthur says later: "It is not too much-to. say-that the present generation's success in handling many of the problems of tuberculosis derives from King Edward Vll's' interest in anti-tu-berculosis'measures..-. . "More than 100. Acts affecting public health have been-passed in ..the last quarter of a' century. The Maternity and Child Welfare Act of 1918 saves the lives of about 42,000 newly-born yearly.,/ ■•■-.■' / "In 1910 social services cost: £55,000,000. , In i 1934:.this had risen to £427,000,000. No other nation provides out of current revenue social and health on this scale."