“PREVENTIVE MEDICINE”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 June 1941, Page 4

“PREVENTIVE MEDICINE”

PART PLAYED BY PLUMBER AND DRAINLAYER. OPTIMIST CLUB ADDRESS. The weekly meeting of the Masterton , 'Optimist Club was held in the Y.M.C.A. | rooms last night. The Chief Smiler, Mr R. C. Baikie, presided. The sheriff's session conducted by Mr E. J. Esler, and the song session led by the Rev. H. Taepa. with Optimist E. C. Coddington at the piano, were enjoyed by all present. "There is no joy like that of the skilled craftsman when he has created • *’* a good job ” stated the speaker for the .■ evening. Mr.- T. A. Russell, president of the New Zealand branch of the Royal Sanitary Institute and borough health inspect o’.'. "Unless one take a pride in having; done a good job he fails in life. It is ’regrettable that there is a tendoner to disparage the craftsman.” \ M'• Russell dealt with the part played by the plumber and drainlayer in “p'reventive medicine.” “So honourable a'.id ancient a cr&ft as plumbing needs Oo apology." he said. The craft went back into antiquity. Sewers were built in India 3.00(1 B.C. In the Berlin State Museum was a piece of copper pipe dating back, to 2.750 B.C. Pericles, who built Athens in 400 8.C., must have employed someone on his roof work. Imperial Rome had its sewers, its aqueducts, it*-, water services and its plumbers. in Bath. England, there still existed lead pipes jointed by Roman plumbers. Mr Russell referred to the Min&r.n Culture in Crete which had, in 1.400 8.C.. bathrooms with glazed earfnenware pipes which were re-in-ver, ted by Doulton in the middle of the liv.it century. In the middle ages sanity.lion disappeared but the plumber f ound occupation on castle and cathedral roof work. He manufactured his sheet lead from the ingot on the spot. Dealing with modern plumbing Mr Russell outlined the system of registration and tuition. New Zealand was the first country to have a State Department of Health, the first to register plumbers and the first to licence drainlayers. At the conclusion of his address Mr Russell answered many questions and was accorded a hearty vote of thanks.