CHRISTMAS SEAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 852, 21 December 1929, Page 37

CHRISTMAS SEAL

APPEAL TO AID DELICATE CHILDREN DOCTOR EXPRESSES VIEWS The Christmas Seal, a combined • postage and anti-tuberculosis stamp, will be procurable at ail post offices throughout the Dominion early in December, on a date which will be. publicly notified. Half of the fund derived from the stamps will be devoted to the campaign against tuberculosis, including the establishment of health camps for delicate or undernourished children, or children who have a tendency to contract tuberculosis, or whose surroundings may be such as to lead to their contracting the infection. The Christmas Seal movement has been most successful in all the leading countries of the world. Every citizen, even those with the most slender means, can help by placing a seal on bis or her letters or cards of greeting during the few weeks before Christmas. Each seal means the gift of a penny for a most worthy cause. The recommendation that New Zealand should adopt the system was made by Mr. G. McNamara, secretary of the Post and Telegraph Department. As a means of assisting in a branch of public health activity, the proposal received the support of the Health Department. It is in childhood that this disease usually makes its first appearance. Sir William Osier, the distinguished physician, in an address to medical men, referring to tuberculosis, said: “The leadership of the battle against the scourge is in your hands. Much has been done; much remains to do. By early diagnosis, and prompt, systematic treatment of individual cases, by striving in every way to improve the social condition of the poor, by joining actively in the work of the local and national anti-tuberculosis societies, you can help in the most important and the most hopeful campaign ever undertaken by the profession."

The following article has been contributed by a medical practitioner who has had large experience in the treatment of tuberculosis, and who at present is in charge of a sanatorium: — “The end of the year. suggests a backward glance and ‘attendance on a sick bed being a great breeder of reflections,’ we find ourselves surveying the situation. We see how this Christmas, as at each preceding one, our institutions are full of physical failures, those who have no chance at present of swimming in the river of life flowing so swiftly along. As we look at the bright, responsive faces of these fellow wayfarers from childhood to age, many questions are suggested to us. Is all this suffering inevitable? Is it part of a universal scheme —when did the stumble come for this one—why did it come? Are these people victims of early infection always? Is there some definite nutritional lack at some period of life? Is it to some extent a temperamental error, or purely physical? Is it perhaps a combination of causes? —and so on. What is the future of those who leave our institution? We see those who through necessity have gone on bravely trying to fight a losing game, and others who through want of knowledge have overdrawn on their physical capital. We see the Maori race being depleted—their customs clashing with our civilisation. THE TUBERCULAR CHILD

The germ which is responsible for tuberculosis is familiar to us, and we know the predisposing factor—deterioration of health which makes the invasion of that germ possible in the human body. What is the solution of this, one of the world’s most urgent problems? Charles Dickens, immortal novelist, with his keen observation an<| sympathetic understanding of social difficulties, has portrayed for us the tubercular child in all its pathos. Who cannot call to mind Little Nell, Paul Dombey, and Tiny Tim, gentle, lovable, physically ineffectual, each in different circumstances trying bravely but feebly to pursue his way through life, yet each a misfit to his environment. The literary genius could create the picture —it is left to this and each succeeding generation to ensure for every child a healthy and joyous existence.

All great reforms have been brought about by a consideration of existing error. In New Zealand our efforts toward the betterment-of children have been based on an appreciation of adult misery and suffering, the* foundation of which has been laid in childhood. In the last 20 years much has been accomplished along health lines. Infants and children have been rescued from errors in feeding, clothing and hygiene, and bodily defects corrected. Dress has been revolutionised, and women at any rate have dispensed with heavy, tight clothes, allowing access of air and sunlight to the surface of the body, stimulating and reinvigorating it. People have learned the value of fresh air in their homes.

There are not wanting agencies to help stumbling humanity along the road; surely the people of New Zealand can add a united effort to raise a fund to provide measures for stamping out tuberculosis, which in the light of our present-day knowledge we regard as a preventable disease, but which for so long has been regarded as the scourge of mankind. The Christmas seal has come as the visible symbol of that help. By its effort, it is hoped, among other considerations to bring into existence rest homes for debilitated children—that is potentially tubercular children. Apart from the protection of the child from early infection, we know that nutrition is the most vital problem we have to consider. It is a social and an economic question. We trust that these rest camps will be a practical illustration of how to live. Other countries are keenly alive to the preventive aspect of tuberculosis in its manysidedness. Let us not lag behind in our effort to do what is humanly possible, and at this season of the year to remember those words which have rung down the ages "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren •