NOBLE CAUSE

Hokitika Guardian, 20 April 1932, Page 8

NOBLE CAUSE

PREVENTIVE MEDICINE. (Contributed £>y the Department of Health). The practice of Preventive Medicine in l'ts modern meaning rests upon the growth of medical science and the application of that knowledge to • problems, of disease, states Sir George Newman, Chief Medical Officer, Ministry of Health, England and Wales. During the last half century the increase of physiological and pathological knowledge, including thait ot infection, has been one of the outstanding leatures of the age in which we live. We now know two certain facts about disease; first, that it is not something arbitrary, capricious, occult or accidental, but an effect of definite causes and conditions ; and secondly that these causes and conditions are- in large and increasing measure controllable by man. Fifty years ago we did not know t le cause of leprosy, typhoid, tuberculosis, diphtheria, cholera or plague, and the process of their control had no basis i" etiological fact- To-day we know ■ the fundamental truths of causation, am. therefore, for the first time public nr, ' personal health has become purcliasnl, < —but ,the purchase involves desire purchase, understanding of what is be bought, and adequate resources of knowledge and of money. There are two things we desire to purchase, a healthy life and a lone oUe, 111 other words, we seek to reduce, and if possible abolish, invalidism and physical disability, and to postpone the event of death. This, ill a word, is the business of Preventive Medicine. It is to make human life better, larger, more capable and useful, happier—and it is to prolong our days. Its purpose is to make the time Mi which we live, and the future, a better time for all men. Thucydides believed that the Golden Age in the world’s history was in Greece in the fifth century B.C. So great had been the achievements of the Athenian City-State that he could say “truth will put to shame imaginings of our deeds.” Gibbon claimed the Age of the Antonines in the second century A.D. as “The period in the history of the world during which the, condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous. The vast extent of the Roman Empire j was governed by absolute power, "under J the guidance of virtue and wisdom,’ and | he adds “the happiness of a great epeople 1 was (he side object ot government. In (ipite of these two historic testimonies »c can, using the plumb-line of a single criterion, say, with truth and without boastfulness, that human life is more valuable to-day than thou. It is ours to Increase that value. Among many .factors in that behalf—apart from the influence of heredity and environment- —a sound mind in a .sound body stands first The .spirit and character of her public opinion is one of the enduring glories of England, and of her Dominions beyond the seas. Can it be devoted to a nobler cause .halt tlu> health of her people in body and mind ?