PREVENTION OF DISEASE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 358, 19 May 1928, Page 8

PREVENTION OF DISEASE

Sir,— It is indeed a sad reflection upon the humanity of “public opinion” that no response is ever made to an aifpeal for the prevention of disease. For over seven years I have contributed letters to the New Zealand papers upon this subject, yet always there remains the same stolid indifference and frozen apathy. Yet let someone start an argument about some altogether unsolvable problem in religion and the subject will be thrashed and beaten to a point of complete exhaustion. Would eo heaven there could be some of the same righteous enthusiasm in the good cause for the prevention of disease. But no, our hospital population leaps up every year (which is the sole cause for the corresponding increase in the

hospital levy) and our accommodation is not sufficient to cope with the demands of disease. Is not after all prevention wiser than all the gruesome paraphernalia of sera, toxin-anti-toxin, and the poisonous stench of chloroform? No, “public opinion” does not think so. It has been educated on the principle that one decayed tooth should not be attended to, but the whole jaw must be allowed to go so as to have a “major operation” out of it. And so with the public it is a case of “on with the dance of disease—and damn prevention.” Every hospital levy tells the story. —R. M. THOMSON. 46 Summer Street, Ponsonby. *