HOW TO LIVE

Hokitika Guardian, 12 September 1932, Page 2

HOW TO LIVE

EDUCATING THE PUBLIC.

HEALTH HOSTELS SUGGESTED

LONDON, September 2

In bis -presidential address at the hundredth annual gent:raj meeting of the British Medical Association, Lord Dawson of Penn suggested the provision of health hostels where people would, be taught liow to live. Wliat was needed was a new type of institution, distinct from hospitals—a health hostel, where there could be reeducation in methods of /laying, treatment—it might be—by diet, physicotherapv (care of the body), and relaxation under controlled observation —but with no cults or fads.

Lord Dawson gave these examples from his own experience of popple who would benefit from health hostel treatment;

The man of 40 getting a fat body and a fat head, who avows himself a small eater yet is clogged with his own metabolic products.

The man beooming set about the neck and waist, who turns his body slowly rather than his bead, and eyes quickly, or who is bluish and breathless, losing his rib movements, and wants to “stay put.” Gastrointestinal (indigestion) victims who need to he taught how to oat, how to digest, and to regulate their bowels, and perhaps to be cured of their “conscious abdomens.”

The patient in the early diabetic stage where not only himself hut his wife needs instruction in food calories and cooking. “The good of the people demands education in the matter of health,” continued 'ljord Dawson. “Would it not be possible for the medical faculty of a university to include among its functions the provision of approved health lectures when such :aro demanded by the districts within the area of its influence? In, this way sound educational standards would be maintained—fads and fancies avoided. The objective of such teaching should be a knowledge of health with only incidental or illustrative reference to disease. The result would be great saving of illness and therefore, in a few years, of expense. Medical insurance costs employers, employed, and the State £36,000,000 a year. “Nature will not yield her secrets on demand,., nor can discovery be bought. You can decide a path of enquiry, but neither its end nor its exact direction. Our aim should be to secure the men—to enable those possessing the ability and while still young to live free of anxiety so as to seek out the secrets of Nature. The medical sciences are so embracing that their pursuit yields results beyond those of direct human application. 1 need only instance the study of genetics or that of virus disease. Take foot-and-mouth disease and ■ diseases of potatoes and bananas. These concern not only our food, but by their ravages involve the loss of vast sums of money. •

“In this country the quest for new knowledge is to be found in all an d varied quarters, and a rich harvest is being gathered. The Medical Research Council is doing a great service in supporting and directing efforts wheresoever they come, and it maintains contacts between workers and between th© institutions to which they belong. “If we look back, what a panorama presents itself during- the life of this Association; and never was there greater promise that the advancing front of knowledge will “make one music as before, but vaster.’ Pursuit of knowledge in the medical sciences not only brings results prolific of benefit to mankind, maybe by adding to life’s quality or lightening the burdens of suffering, but its very pursuit makes doctors of every nationality and clime into comrades who, animated by the same ideals, think and work together—the gold of endeavour without the alloy of conflict.”