HEALTH AND WORK.

Hokitika Guardian, 20 August 1923, Page 1

HEALTH AND WORK.

DISEASE AND POPULATION

A vorv distinguished scientist. 1 lull. I)r \Y. 11. 1!. Hive re, has dclin ! as "a process whereby pi»i»nli>ii,:„ is adjusted 1" tli» means of subsistence.’' !'• is :tn automatic check, ~iio H ilu' various decrees by whim X:sl uro lioltls lhe balance even. In the overcrowded Hast famines and Hoods periodically carry oil' scores and scores of thousands, leucine; more room for ihe others. An argumeul seriou-ly ad-

vancetl in t liina not lone; ago against tlu> ciin.stnutinn oi coriniu omiiinoormu:

works. which would hold a mighty river in hounds, was that if there were no tiro b, the province in question would

-.(.0n be over-populated. In the same way. during the Middle Ages Kit rope wa v swep! bv dreadful pestilences whim i|.,.i( d v. hole cities and put back the :*l,if*l* of civilisation. London had itHlack Death and plague, violations far more terrible than anything that nut oun days have known. Throughout history we can observe the operation of this rough-and-ready “control pra*--tised bv Xai ire. hut mankind has no;

,milted passively to her harsh dis

oeii-ation. AYliat we call eivilisafion is, in one of its aspects, simply tlie conscious effort of man to improve niton Nature, to i nidi her tone*. fn modern times part!(o.larly. he has waged a vigorous waifare against her. no! ititoonl snivels. lie has fought floods with great reclamation works, famine with irrigation nml relief organisation. Against disease he has brought the mas-'cd batteries of medical research to hear. And although lie has still tar to go before he can claim that he has subdued Nature—will such a claim ever he possible ?'■—he has, at any rate, -o-iw noteworthv achievements to his credit Tt is, for example, a rnminonphiee th' in India the famines which once devastated the land are now. thanks to +h* various eoiinier-ntcasitres token by the British, both less frequent and loss severe in their incidence.

So it is also with disease. The ill to which llesh is heir have not been eliminated. hut many of them have been alleviated. Tt seems incontestable that, if allowance he made for the evils attendant uo*-n urbanisation, the eenerrd standard of health is higher than it used to l e. TVo are apt to assume, rather glibly, that our forefathers lived longer than we do. Tint did they 5 ■Reliable statistics relating to hyson*’ days are difficult to obtain. Ts there

any conclusive evidence that the average span of life was greater than it is now? We must remember, more-

over, that even moderate age was very often a period of xuifering and helplessness. Feeble sight, indigestion due

to defective teeth, gout (for the rich man) and crippling rheumatism (“the poor mail’s gout”) were regarded as a natural, almost an inevitable, accompaniment of advancing years. The death rate was heavy. Many suc-

cumbed to mysterious "inflammations’ which nowadays would lie cured hy comparatively mild operation. In an; ease, to submit oneself to the surgeon’

knife m those times was an ordeal which few were stout-hearted enough to face, and even if thev survived it

there was sepsis to he reckoned with But medicine, therapeutic and pro

veutivo. has gone from conquest to conquest, nor arc it; results apparent only after a long period of years. They manifest- themselves with surprising swiftness. Reeontlv in the House of ('ominous the Minister for Health said tlmt in the la.M 20 years the death rate in Britain has fallen from 17 to 13

par thou-and. and lie attributed the decline to the development in medical and surgical art.

. ( -.eider this phenomenon m Lie [ !i h: of the aphorism that disease is a - tPi'rective, one of the .safeguards pro- .- vided hy Nature against over-popula-tion. Is science, hy dcpr.viog it :l . much of its power to harm, simply crei a.i.i:] ; allot iter problem a I- it merely 1 ad ling to the number of hengr;. mouths 1 competing lor bread which is insuffi- - I ci.-at to go ml? If that were so oar | la :: stale void.l he l-iHe lit liar than ■ the iir-.t. Hate wo won these \ ietories I only to he d • - ated by the operation of | :• 11 inexorable law in the background? A re we jumpering foolishly with a fundamental. i'-resistib’e order of things, am! vw .lv endeavouring to abolish an | agent y which is necessary to regulate ;r nidation ? The answer is to be found 1 in the precise terms of Dr River ’s da- j finitien. The "means of sub istenee” j are ihe crucial tost. If'they had rein.lire 1 stationary, ~nr efforts would have been to no purpose. .Men would have died from starvation instead of I from disc: ■. But they have Inereas- ! ed. Their increase ha; gene hand-in I lmm! with 1 lie increase in the populaj tioil of the gb Lo. for which the gr.-atet j j security of modern life and the partial ; l subjugation of nature Ly man have

’e: n responsible. In tho course of little more than a century, the century in vrhich the grow th of population has been most marked, the world’s produc- : (to has swollen prodigiously.

Huge tracts of virgin land have been i mured up and utilised for the benefit of mankind. The British dominions,

| .'.metica, the Argentine, Siberia, all ! contribute vast supplies of foodstuffs to

j [it., world’s larder. Mechanical inven- | tion lias stimulated output. The reaper | and binder makes a quicker job of the I harvest than the sickle. The machine I produces more than the old manual

! process. The exploitation ot the world's j resources seems only to be I beginning. I Twenty-five years ago Sir b illiam | Crookes drew a gloomy picture of tho i outlook of the Caucasian. By 1931, bo | said, the world would have reached its j limit ill wheat production, and what would happen then? Butman has a way of adapting himself to circumstances. When the oak forests in Britain were on the point of exhaustion pessimists asked what would become of the British navy and mercantile marine. Tim unconcerned Briton buili his ships out | of iron instead of wood. The moral i; j that if man thinks hard enough and J works hard enough he may face the i future with confidence.