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The advances in chemotherapy and the antibiotics, with
the improvements in anaesthetics and blood transfusion, have
combined to bring about a steady improvement in surgery.
The sulphonamides and antibiotics are most effective in pyogenic
coccal infections. The discovery of new drugs has revolutionised
medicine, psychological medicine and dermatology and the
same can be said of the advances in the treatment of tropical
diseases. Similar advances have been made in the treatment of
venereal diseases, owing to the improvements in bacteriological
diagnosis and discoveries in specific chemotherapy.
There still exists a large amount of absenteeism from work
due to sickness and injury, which expressed in terms of manhours
lost per annum is colossal. The question arises in how
many of the milder cases, sickness could have been avoided by
care or better social conditions. To what extent could even an
elementary knowledge of methods of maintaining health or a
talk with the family doctor avoid absence from work ?
Much has yet to be achieved before perfection can be
claimed, but there is no reason for gloom and foreboding. As
long as an enlightened policy is laid down by the Council for the
advancement of health education the health of the inhabitants
of Camberwell will continue to improve. There has been a
tendency in recent years to neglect the aspect of preventive medicine
and to put all the emphasis on the more spectacular curative
treatment of diseases. Curative medicine under the National
Health Service Act may be regarded as a blessing but on no
account should attention be diverted from the prevention of
disease; the axiom "Prevention is better than cure" still holds
good. In these days our financial position is not such that we
can afford sickness. From the economic point of view, a healthy
individual is an asset—a sick man a liability. A continuous
process of education of the general public is necessary. The
rudiments of health, knowledge of the prevention of diseases and
accidents and the importance of obtaining the advice of a doctor
in the early stages of an illness, should be well instilled in the
minds of all children before they leave school. Above all, they
should be taught that a healthy body and a healthy mind
cannot be provided by the local sanitary authority without
their co-operation.
It should be the aim of every individual to continue to
educate himself as to the methods he can employ to improve his
own health and that of those nearest and dearest to him. He
should learn the necessity for regarding whooping cough and
measles as serious illnesses, the importance of clean food and
hygienic food handling. He should become acquainted with
the preventive measures to combat the spread of tuberculosis
and other diseases; the value of immunisation both active and