PREVENTIVE MEDICINE.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 202, 11 September 1937, Page 4

PREVENTIVE MEDICINE.

•"Preventive medieiae no longer lias tlio coinparatively siuiplo taslc in & particular area of dealing witli eanitary evils and disease, of iinproving individual and environniental hygiene, and of iatrodueing Ihe next generation to a better state of things," said Sir Artkur MacNalty, chief medical offieer of ihe British Ministry of Health, in a reecnt speech. ' 'Populations aro shifting, urbanisalion is iucreasing; the internal conibustion engine and modorii methods of transport havo accelerated the speed of life. The human machiue is often driven so hard that it breaks down. It is of little avail to preaeh doctrines of health to young nien and maidejas who have to toil all day in a sunless city, and who stint themselves of proper rest and proper food in. order to burn the candlo at both ends in a feverish hunt of ill-ventilated amusement at nightfall. Nervous breakdowns and mental disease give us causo for anxiety and cannot be dissociated from modern conditions of life. From time to time disease baffled in oue form breaks out in another, as encephalitis lethargica has done. Over and above these new difficulties and dangers, ithe health administrator has to consolidate the work done and to keep the old and proved defences in xepair, lest at any time the lurldng enemy may make a breach in them. Preventive medicine has thus a hard campaign before it in a cbanging world."