The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1918. PLAGUES AND THEIR PREVENTION.

Taihape Daily Times, 20 November 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1918. PLAGUES AND THEIR PREVENTION.

(With wMcSa is Incorporated The Xfti* hape Post and Wainmti-ao News)..

Tne plague which has thrown a black mantle of sorrow over this little community of the southern seas is pursuing its deadly course in all other parts of the world. The peoples of the earth . have banished the scourge of war only to have Pandora's box opened .upon them to destroy life by diseases and ills that the sword of a military caste could not touch. From a cablegram received yesterday it seems the whole American Continent was no more and no less surprised by the terrifying pandemic than the people of New Zealand were. The suddenness of its appearance and the deadliness of its attack are features that ■ should attract the closest attention of bacteriologists and medical scientists, because it is in the rapidity of its spread and in the shortness of time taken to reach a crisis in which its destructivity of human life chiefly lies. Although it has been stated that insanitary conditions add to Its virulence and virility, it is no respecter of persons, and, although medical men themselves have been victims to it, there is ample evidence both in city and country, even into the backblocks, that the nature of the environment people have surrounded themselves with has a very marked effect •" upon The proportionate number of cases and upon the severity of the affection. In America this epidemic has .caused more deaths than the Whole sum total of American casualties sustained in the war. No other country is furnishing definite news of this character, and it Is. not stated what the loss of life in this Dominion has. been, but, presuming that all other countries have been afflicted no less severely than America, the world's death roll from this one cause alone is veritably appalling, too terrible to contemplate what it will be when tl- - has run its course. Pestilences of earlier history have not been so pandemic in character, probably owing to lack of means for rapid travel; ; to move from one side of the globe to ! the other is. now a matter of weeks, | whereas in earlier plague times it was j a journey of. months. An epidemic i fever having somewhat the characteri istics of the present influenza, broke ;out in Gibraltar in IS2B.- and raged for about three months with great destruction, of life, and it may be that the present epidemic is named Spanish influenza from that attack. In 1804, with a recrudescence in 1805, Spain and Gibraltar were ravaged by a similar pestilence, but for the last century and over, plagues affecting British peoples have chiefly been cholera, black and yellow fevers. Prom earliest times Britain has suffered periodically from what was known as "sweating sickness," which sometimes carried off ifs~victims in less than four hours. All history of such plagues and epidemics goes to show very clearly that the severity of their ravages was largely the ignorance of their nature and the fearful sanitary conditions which obtained. As far back as 1485 sweating sickness swept over London; in 1499 the Royal Court moved from the scene of plague in London, to Calais; in 1506, and again in 1517 sweating sickness depopulated London to an alarming extent, but in 1604 a much more virulent and deadly plague seized upon insanitary London, j which culminated in 1664 and I 1665 in what is known as "The Great Plague of Lon- | don." In this visitation from seventy I thousand to one hundred thousand I Londoners succumbed. Fires were j kept burning in every available part ! of the city day and night to destroy ; the contagion, but it was not-till 1 the ! Great Fire of London in 1666 that the I city was freed from infection. People of Britain and strangers from all

parts of the known world had then commenced to drift to London, and a huge population had grown up amid all the filth and squalor for which that time was noted. Medical science was in its infancy regarded from the pinnacle it now occupies; the art of medicine claimed most attention in those days,, and sanitary science had not began to be practised in a general way, and could not cope with the sanitation necessities of the haphazard growth of such communities as that of London in 1664. This brief retrospect, then, helps the people of these days *o realise what sanitation means, or rather what the want of sanitary conditions mean to the world, and

even to a small community such "as we in New Zealand can only claim to be. The question facing us is, should the State disregard essential conditions of human existence "while pandering to the greed that would in its selfishness trample the life out of thousands on its way to accumulating millions of money, or should- it institute and establish such sanitary and life-sustain-ing conditions as well as enable every child born into the community being reared into a perfectly healthy man or woman? Should the State still continue on a road that leads to misery, suffering and death, or should it take the beneficent way that opens out into life, health, contentment and happiness. Whatever the present terrifying evil is, whether it is Spanish Influenza, the old sweating sickness, or something new in the category of plagues, sanitation only can commence to control and limit it. provided the masses have not reached a state of partial emaciation as makes them ready victims to it. The Health specialist will plead and importune for an effective health department, but we would suggest to them, most humbly, that they may have sanitary arrangements as perfect as presentday science permits in the conditions of life into which the masses are forced, but without a well-nourished, happy, contented, pToperly-housed people the Health Department, although its officers may be paid ten thousand pounds a year, pestilences and epidemics will not be prevented. Let it be realised ffiat it is not the amount of remuneration paid, to officers, but the amount honestly and intelligently spent on rearing a wellnourished happy people in the best possible ' sanitary environment; also let it be understood that as this country becomes more populous it will experience what older countries have "experienced, and pestilences will become more frequent. There is only one way to avoid them and that is by the State being compelled to take the course herein indicated.