PROMOTING TH-E HEALTH OF CHILDREN.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 August 1921, Page 4

PROMOTING TH-E HEALTH OF CHILDREN.

The useful address given by Dr. Elizabeth Gunn at New Plymouth on Monday night concerning the health of children should entirely remove the misconception which exists on the part of some parents as to the nature of the very necessary work that Dr. Gunn is carrying out in her medical inspection of children attending schools. The importance of that work cannot be overestimated, inasmuch as ou its success depends the future of our citizens. It aims at the ideal of producing healthy bodies simultaneously with the production of healthy minds by the school teachers. It is a completely exploded theory that preventive methods are mere fads. Experience has proved that in the past the children of the Dominion have not been given a fair chance of becoming strong and healthy adults. There is no need to inquire into who was to blame. Faced with the startling records of the rejects for military service, there was only one wise course for the Gov-

ernment to take, and that was to do all that is possible to remove defects in children’s fitness, so that they may grow in strength and health. That is Dr. Gunn’s mission, and it deserves the whole-hearted support and assistance of parents and the community in general. Among the matters affecting the health of children, to which Dr. Gunn devotes

particular attention are the treatment of the teeth, tonsils, adenoids, mouthbreathing, defective hearing, eyesight, and goitre, but there is one very important branch of her work on which special stress is laid, namely, dealing with children who suffer from being improperly fed, otherwise designated as malnutrition, for the remedying of which children’s health camps are advocated. Judging by the astonishing results at the Turakina camp in IDI9 there can be no question that permanent camps of this kind would be of the utmost advantage, and the appeal to the Victoria League for help in this and other directions should not be in vain. Tn strongly condemning the practice of some parents of too scantily attiring their children, Dr. Gunn touched on a matter that may possibly create resentment, inasmuch as those who are so foolish—or callous —as to send their children to school like moulting fowls will naturally feel hurt, but it is to be hoped they will soon recover from their chagrin and profit by the humanitarian adviee ( of one who knows only too well what the children have to suffer through such unnatural treatment. This address of Dr. Gunn should bear good fruit, but will only do so if the subject matter is sympathetically received and its importance adequately realised.