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King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 612, 18 October 1913, Page 2

- u •'•■' • •'• j cV orc-uT.hdr"- Ci'.y. Tel. 2642. A *3ci : , inri!. I 1 11-i U c ..'sursea Cuappell nntl Wur<>"n, Tel. 851. Office of the Society, 2 Cliaj'cary streetTel. 82i). Oiiiee hour.?, Tuesdays and Fridays, 2.80 to 4p m. Hon. Se-\, Mrs W. H. Parkes, Murinoto, Symonds street. Tel. 240. Nr.pier. —"Planket Nurse Donald, Marine Parade. Hon. Sec., Mra Hector Smith. Hastings.—Plunket Nurse Purcell. Office of the Society at Mr Bate's Pharmacy. Hon. Sec , Mra T. W. Lewis. Tel. 285. Dannevirke. P'unket Nurse Wright. Hon. Sec., Mrs Bickford, Bank of New Zealand. "THE BETTER-DEAD SCHOOL." Both at the Infantile Mortality Congress and at the subsequent International Medical Congress the speeches of John Burns, as Minister of Pjblic Health, summarised in last week's issue, were characterised by the great force fulness oE the terse saying with which he clinched his arguments. Or. the opening day nothing went home with his great audiences more than his emphatic statement: "I don't belong to the 'better-dead' school " Be had been explaining to us that throughout their work for the betterment of motherhood and babyhood in England they had been opposed and assailed for long time by people who had said (exactly as similar people said in New Zealand in the early days of our Society) that the babies who were being saved would be "ue'.ter dead." Again and again he returned to the point: "You understand theni, clearly, that I have no sympathy whatever with tha 'better-deads'!" Just sa we have urged again and again in New Zealand that otir r-?al objective wan not so mcuh a reduction in the death-rate as the advancement .of the heaUh and fitness of the whole community so John Burns thundered and pleaded for a recognition of the fact that the factors adverse to health whinh tend to kill children in the first year of life also debilitate and maim more or leas those who survive, and thus tend to weaken and incapacitate the wbola race. OPPOSITION TO REFORM. It is interesting to have brought home to one, in this cilv. oi : man.v milllion?, how similar is the the uppoei- | ticn to reform to that which one meets with in a new country; but to us who live in the colonies a;ii in younger communities in general, thesa worldconferences bring a great encouragement in the revelation oc how much less formidable ia our btrrier of ingrained prejudice and error than the dead wall of uccbangeabieness which often confronts those how devote themselvesto the improvement of Public Health on this side of the world. In general nothing could have been in stronger contrast than the sarguine and progressive attitude oc the New World delegates and membezs (Americans and Australasians) cs compared with the English health authorities, in spite of all th« progass that has been made here. The younger peoples showed a faith and optimism as regards further betterment which found little response. Thua' the Commonwealth representative, backed by the dele gates from Canada and New Zealand, twice brought forward a proposal that the Congress should make an emphatic pronouncement as to wliat should bo regarded as an average normal infantile death-rate among babies for any ordinary country—in other words, a "survival rate," which every country ought to aspire to —a rate to fall below which would be regarded aa reprehensible, and at I?ast calling for inquiry and investigation. An "infant survival rate" of 95 per cent. —that is a death-rate of 5 per cent. —was suggested as reasonably attainable, and as something to aspire to. Unquestionably the colonial representatives were right when they said that it was far more stimulating for communities to have reasonable ideals set before them to work up to than for communities to be encouraged to pat themselves on the back when they managed to gat their infantile deathrates below the high mortalities of peoples more negligent than themselves. ™As regards the Londun Infantile death rate, to which I have referred, one feels what a wonderful improvement has been effected by the London County Council and other bodies in improving all-round hygienne conditions; but the quoted infantile death rate of per cent., is misleading, because: that figure is simply the lowest attained, not the average for the last two or three years, which is much higher. It is remarkable, ai I shall show later, how little is being done in England in the direction of bringing the rising generation of doctors abreast of the scientific end practical advances mdo in lbs care of mother and child during thn 20 years, and especially during the last 10 years. Not only is? this true as regards rwlsYal prof, s'-ion, but it i? cvsr. s"ore tru>> as* regards the p;rer,: of 1! ;;;s!<uk:lion.