PRE-SCHOOL AILMENTS

Waikato Times, Volume 124, Issue 20741, 27 February 1939, Page 4

PRE-SCHOOL AILMENTS

WIDESPREAD DEFECTS CRITICALLY IMPORTANT YEARS GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT .No. 4.) By P.M.W. The pre-school years, in particular, are the most critically important years for the future development of the child and of the man. The nutrition and general development of the child during pre-school years are progressively . changing from the infantile to the adult type; and any single step in this scr.es of changes might easily become the origin of life-long disorder. Nevertheless, the medical and scien- . tific student will seek in vain, in classi- | cal treatises on physiology, etc., any j chapters devoted to the needs of the j pre-school child. He will find, more- ; over, no mention of the exertions which may safely be demanded of the childorganism, of the proper proportions of physical and mental effort, or symptoms ■ of fatigue, or of the optimum conditions for growth. The establishment of a New Zealand chair of pediatrics is : therefore an urgent need. All-round Prevention j Dorso-lumbar kyphosis (hump-back) : and a sagging attitude of the body are 1 the most common effects of a sedentary life in children and in adolscents. ; Tile cause is a general insufficiency of the supporting tissues, combined with wrong posture, both sealed and upright. Statistics of medical inspection of adults reveal lasting traces of such physical defects caused in tlie> earliest years of life, and resulting in life-long constitutional weakness. The fact that statistics relating to school children seldom mention these deficiencies is due to the habit of school medical inspectors reporting the most obvious defects only. Errors in diet are of particular importance during the first few years of life. Too little good-class protein and a deficiency of vitamins, calcium, phosphates, iron, iodine, etc., lead to many physical and mental disabilities. These diseases— so tong locked upon as inevitable and as part of the hardships inseparably linked with “the growing years ” —are of great social importance. They are initially responsible for incoMij 'ete development both m childhood and in later life. Physical training alone can neither prevent nor cure them. Hospital Inmates A.'thi-ugh infant mortality during the first 1? months of life is on trie downgrade, in almost every civilised country, a separate study of child-life shows that illnesses among pre-school children are increasing at an alarming rate. These illnesses constitute the foundation of the widspread inefficiency, due to ill-health, which is rampant among the civilised nations of the earth. In New Zealand, the number of the inmates of public hospitals alone, between the ages of one and five years, has more than doubled itself during the past 20 years. It may possibly be argued that nowadays we send children to hospitals for complaints that were hitherto treated in the home. Such an argument, however, cannot apply to, say, the past four years, during which period the number of preschool cases in the public hospitals has increased by some 20 per cent as against a population increase during the same period of 3 per ,cent only. The many years of research work on ' the part of British, American and Continental medical and .other scientists have shown that there is a great lack of proportion in growth and development, in the case of most pre-school children. The body may grow tall, but the weigth and the transverse dimensions do not increase at the same rale.