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Hokitika Guardian, 19 August 1933, Page 4

The extraordinary decline in infant mortality in the present century declared Sir George Newman, chief medical officer of the British Ministry of Health, would probably prove to be one of the historical achievements of modern preventive medicine. The effect of this strangely new form of lifesaving was 'a substantial contribution to the maintenance of the population, A saving of 40,C00 lives a year, which had been accomplished, was a high asset, a big balance on the credit side of the national Sudit of life and death. They must realise, however, that among the lives saved were those of tons of thousands of frail children, including many mental and physical defectives. In other words, life had been saved, ransomed if they preferred the term, i:i an experimental degree—more than at any other time in English history—but the ransom had got to.be paid and they must, in duty hound, turn their minds and wills to the tendonco and cultivation of those new and sometimes precarious lives. The young woman of to-day must be prepared, i;i the exercise of appropriate measures and in the control of personal habits for her own health and

way,of Hfo, as a potential mother of healthy children. The goodness of the new generation would den and on tlie physical and moral quality of the home-maker end home-builder herself. They must all work together for better midwifery and for much more thorough nurture of the child under five years of age—up to the present regarded all too commonly as a negligible commodity. Sir George said that he knew of no recent facts more impressive than that, though as a na-tion-they had suffered from prolonged unemployment and depression, bringing with it an ‘alpine mass of suffering and distress,” so strong had been their physical defences that the stability of the national health had not been materially affected. There was as yet no evidence of widespread physical impairment, of increasing sickness, or of rising mortality.