Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, JUNE 25, 1938. CHILD NUTRITION AND HEALTH.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 June 1938, Page 6

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, JUNE 25, 1938. CHILD NUTRITION AND HEALTH.

announcement by the Minister of Health (the Hon

P. Fraser) that he Jias approved an investigation, under the direction of the Medical Research Council, into the question of infant nutrition in New Zealand, is likely to be welcomed generally and should set a period to a somewhat unprofitable debate that has been started by some members of the medical profession as to the merits of the methods pursued by the Plunket Society. Even' an interested public cannot become, and cannot be expected to attempt to become, a jury ready to pronounce a verdict on the issues raised in this controversy. The merits of these issues will be determined, not by debating society methods, but by efficiently co-ordinated scientific research, and in no other way.

In making the request for an inquiry upon which the Minister has decided to act, the New Zealand Council of the Bi’itish Medical Association expressed an opinion that the inquiry would be welcomed as much by the Plunket Society as by the association’s members. This assumption is confirmed by the executive committee of the Plunket Society in a statement in the course of which it observes that “the society welcomes the fullest inquiry into the work and will be prepared at any time to make available its records of cases over a number of years.”

AU that need be asked with regard to the inquiry to be instituted is that it should be adequately comprehensive. In view of the terms in which the work of the Plunket Society has lately been attacked by some members of the medical profession, it is clear that an investigation of infant nutrition in New Zealand ought to take account of children well beyond the stage of infancy, and-should do it in the right spirit of scientific investigation—that is to say, with a careful examination of all relevant facts.

As against the claim that the teaching of the Plunket Society has contributed in an important degree to the rearing of many thousands of splendidly healthy infants, it is more than suggested by some doctors that the feeding methods approved and inculcated by the society are responsible for malnutrition in children beyond the stage of infancy. These questions obviously are not to be determined merely by investigating infant nutrition. In any serious attempt to ascertain the causes of malnutrition in children, account plainly must be taken of the whole of the dietetic and other influences to which these children have been subjected.

No reasonably observant person in this country can be * unaware of the wide prevalence, in the upbringing of children beyond the stage of infancy, of dietetic and other details which obviously are open to criticism and, _ incidentally, are condemned .nowhere more uncompromisingly than in the teaching of the Plunket Society.

Continued and unremitting investigation into the question of infant nutrition in itself is, of course, very necessary. A great deal has been accomplished in this field, however, and there is every assurance that more will be accomplished as time goes on, thanks in great part to the work of the Plunket Society. There is no such assurance meantime with regard to the nutrition and general upbringing of children of pre-school and school age in this country. On that account it will be decidedly disappointing if the inquiry now projected does not take account of the health and welfare of older children as well as of infants.