SIX MILLION NEEDLESS ILLNESSES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 81899, 7 December 1906, Page 4

SIX MILLION NEEDLESS ILLNESSES.

Taking as his text "Prevention is better than cure" Dr A. T. Scho field, at the initial Giesham lecture last month, said that there .were 200,000 premature deaths in the United Kingdom every year. As the ratio of illnesses to death was about thirty to one, there must have been some 6,000,000 unnecessary and preventible sick beds in the same time. i Worry and anxiety about health were the surest way to disease, and if hu letcture made health faddists of his audiences r ne had failed disastrous'y. His great rule for the average man was, "Keep up your wsight and don't worry." Palpitations and pain In or near the heart might safely be ignored, at least in the vast majority of cases. That organ was most difficult to injure, and could stand any reasonable strain.

Regard health, he advised, with a wise indifference, and never "diet." Moderation and variety in food is al that is needed, not "munching clubs," where forty bites per mouthful must be counted.

Hostesses did their guests poor service when they pressed them to cat once they were satisfied. He was happy to think that he had, in the case of several families, stopped the intolerable burden of spying upon a guest's pla:e.