RIGHT LIVING.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 9, 4 October 1937, Page 4

RIGHT LIVING.

" "Prevehtive medicine," said Sir Arthur MacNally, Chief Medical Officer of the British Ministry of Health, in a recent address, "no longer has the comparatively simple ta'sk in a particular area of dealing with sanitary evils and disease, of improving individual and environment bygiene, and of introducing the next generation to _ a better state of things. Populations are shifting, urbanisation is increasing; the internal combustion engine and modern methods of transport have accelerated the speed of life. _ The human machine 1 is often driven so hard that it breaks down. It is little avail to preach doctrines of health to young. men and maidens 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 candle at both ends in a feverish hunt for ill-ventilated amusement at nightfall. " Nervous breakdowns and mental disqase give us cause for anxiety and cannot he dissociated from modern conditions of life. From time to time disease baffled in one form breaks out in another, as encephalitis lethargica has done. Over and above these new ^ difficulties and dangers, the health administrator has to consplidate the work done and to keep the old and proved defences in repair, lest at any time the lurking encmy may make a breach in them. Prevcntive medicine has thus a hard campaign before it in a ohanging world.