MEN OF THE FUTURE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 490, 20 October 1928, Page 25

MEN OF THE FUTURE

CARING FOR CHILDREN’S HEALTH * PUBLIC CONSCIENCE (Contributed by the Department of Health.) Professor F. G. Parsons, F.R.C.S., F.S.A., a fw months ago delivered a presidential address to the Anthropological Section of the British Association at Leeds, his subject being “The Englishman of the Future.” As a contrast to the gloomy prophecies of some modern pessimists, it is refreshing to note Professor Parsons's well-considered and confident belief that the British people show a sure progress not only in their increasing freedom from physical defect, but in improved general physique and stature.

He attributes thus advance in phvsical well-being largely to the development of a public health conscience which, working through maternal and child welfare organisations, in recent years has given opportunity for health to masses of people who previouslv lived under conditions of hopeless squalor, poverty and neglect. “It may be objected,” states Dr. Parsons, “that this study of child welfare has been going on throughout the ages, and is by no means limited to the last half-century or a little more; but the point which I w'ish to make is that national knowledge, based upon experiment and observation, could only have spread after medical men themselves began to learn scientific facts and to teach them to those who were able and willing to understand them. It is this way that each year the younger generation is brought up a little more sanely than its forerunner: and each year, too, the healthier influences push their way a little lower into the social scale. Now we have reached a stage in which the poorest child cf the slums may be, and often is, watched over by the child welfare and almoners’ departments of our great hospitals Jong before it is born, and, if its parents be not too stupid, may throughout its young life enjoy very nearly the same healthy surroundings and quite as much skilled medical advice as its richer brethren, save that we’ cannot yet give it tho amount of air it needs in which to sleep healthily, or free it from the results of the ignorant and thoughtless cruelty of uneducated parents. Another generation or two must pass, and these things also will cease to be. It is grievous to think that the hardest task of all is to give these poorer children their proper share of pure night air, that deadly terror of our forefathers. So long as slum areas and overcrowding last it is hard to see how this may be done.” School Medical Inspection

In this young ancj vigorous country we enjoy as yet comparative freedom from many of the grave social and economic problems met with in older lands. We have thus a wider opportunity for and can feel a more secure faith in measures for the improvement of the general welfare. Here, too, we have evidence of an advance in the general health and physique of the inhabitants. The records of the school medical service for the last 15 years, for instance, shows that the New Zealand children of to-day are not only taller and heavier than they were 15 years ago. but suffer to a less extent from physical defects. While we have not the extremes of poverty and riches to be found in older lands, there is probably no other country in the world to-day where (he average well-being of the people is equal to that found here.

It is a well-established fact that in New Zealand the average length of life is greater than that known anywhere else in the world. We should see that our living and working conditions are such that this increased longevity is accompanied by additional vigour, happiness, and efficiency. Toward this end we urge that the health service of the country should be utilised to the fullest extent. Parents are especially recommended to attend the medical examination of their children at school and to obtain the benefit of the advice of the school medical officer. By this means they are assisted in securing for their little ones the incalculable benefit of that wise nurture which confers not only freedom from physical defect but positive health and vitality.