HEALTH IN BRITAIN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 May 1941, Page 4

HEALTH IN BRITAIN

STANDARDS REMARKABLY HIGH IM SPITE OF WAR PRIVATIONS. AMERICAN INVESTIGATION. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, May 15. The United States is sending to Britain a committee of American medical men to try to find out why the people have come through the winter's ordeal with better health than in the years of peace. Medical men generally are completely baffled by the nation’s fitness. They had feared that, after the nights of crowding in air-raid shelters and exposure to all weathers when on A.R.P. and fire-watching duties, epidemics might sweep the country. There have been fewer cases of scarlet fever, diphtheria, pneumonia and typhoid fever and only half the number of deaths from influenza. Whooping cough and meningitis alone have been rather more prevalent than usual. Britain's own doctors offer various explanations, among them the dispersal from the densely-populated areas, the improved system of health supervision, the spread of education in preventive measures and the fewer people at the cinemas and in other public places. All, however, are agreed that the busy and hazardous life that is led by forty million people leaves them neither time nor inclination to brood over their minor ailments.