View report page

16
at all ages and. in all places, the problem of the prevention of mental
illness urgently requires attention. One aspect of this, housing, I have
already touched upon. There remain the questions of educating people to
lead a healthy, mental life, to have a healthy mental outlook and the
fostering of the services fleetingly mentioned in the Report of the Royal
Commission on the Law relating to Mental Illness and Mental Deficiency, as
having a value in helping to prevent difficulties which might lead to mental
disturbance or might provide useful social support whether the need arose
from mental or other causes. Such things as the local health and welfare
services, including the mental health services, national insurance and
assistance, employment services, child guidance, family welfare, problem
family, marriage guidance councils, social clubs, youth organisations,
community centres, old people's welfare services and clubs.
NUCLEAR RADIATION HAZARDS. To our problemshave now been added
the risks from radioactive substances, which are being increasingly produced
and used in arms production, in power production, in industry, in processing
and sterilizing foods, in pest control, and in diagnosis and treatment in
hospital. It would, however, be wrong to overrate the risks or to get
them out of perspective. Although the presence of these substances cannot
be detected by any of the unaided senses, their natures and the safeguards
against them have been most carefully studied by the scientists who have
most carefully laid down precautions for all concerned as the science has
developed. Apart from the most greatly publicised accident at Windscale
and excluding Russia, there have been six reactor accidents in all. Nobody
has been killed in any of them, and nobody seriously damaged. In fact,
the Windscale incident lends additional point in that, although major
irreparable and enormously expensive engineering damage was done to the
atomic reactor, no one inside or outside the establishment suffered any
health damage and this, despite the fact that the Kodak laboratories in
London showed radioactivity one hundred times the normal after the accident.
The various Ministries have the question of radiation hazard very
much in mind; the scientific staff of the London County Council are
constantly investigating the position and the public health departments are
very mindful of their responsibilities in this matter.
HEALTH EDUCATION. The Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of
Health wrote in 1951 "We have in fact arrived at a time when the
citizen himself must actively participate in the campaign for better health
if substantial progress is to be made. We are leaving the era of sanitary
engineering and are entering into that of personal hygiene, in which each
person must definitely contribute to the common weal."
Although it does not pay immediately recognisable dividends,
Health Education as a long term project is essential to enable the individual
to play his part in the national effort.
Education as distinct from information is required. Education
in the true sense, in which the individual must play his part. But it
must be done in a big way. To be effective, Health Education must be
fostered at National level by radio, television and national press, and
locally by personal contact by health visitors, women health officers,
public health inspectors, teachers, doctors and by the local press.
The whispered and pathetic "wolf wolf" against smoking and lung
cancer employing such posters as the "yellow peril" have no chance against
the televised advertisements of fifteen different brands of cigarettes, all
employing clever and different emotional approaches and reaching seven
million people several times each night.
On reflection, I think it will be agreed that we have conquered
or brought under control such natural hazards as infectious disease, maternal
and child mortality, impure water, infected milk, refuse accumulation,
defective drainage, animal and insect pests, and so on. Unfortunately,
"he who adds to knowledge adds to sorrow" and, in solving some problems,
we have created others. We are now having to cope with such man made
problems as radiation hazards, atmospheric pollution, housing, home accidents,