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The Ministry of Health, aided by its able staff of experts and Advisory
Councils, has already done much excellent work, and much is being developed.
Its co-operation with the League of Nations in the establishment of an
International Health Organisation for matters affecting public welfare, will
be of the utmost importance in the progressive development of civilisation.
The Minister of Health is also associated with the newly formed Medical
Research Council, which is a most valuable development of the Medical
Research Committee, which was initiated during the War, and issued many
important reports.
The Minister of Health has also recently appointed a Departmental Committee
on Smoke Abatement. The Coal Smoke Abatement Society has for
many years been a pioneer in this direction, and eight years ago the Holborn
Council distributed more than 10,000 copies of a pamphlet "More Sunshine
for London" emphasizing the great importance of increased gas and
electricity and smoke-consuming stoves and furnaces.
While co-ordination of International, Central and Local Health
Authorities are essential, of no less value is Self-Help, and this side of the
problem is to be the special feature of this year's Health Week.
The necessity for this Self-Help has been shown by the statistics of the
examination of recruits for the War, which disclosed an appalling amount of
the C 3 population. The medical examination of schoolchildren has shewn
that a million were so defective as to be unable to derive reasonable benefit at
school. The latest Insurance returns showed that more than half of the
Insured persons received medical treatment every year, and that among these
there were more than 14,000,000 weeks of sickness a year, equal to a loss of
working time of 270,000 years.
In order to obtain an A 1 population, it is therefore essential that the laws
of Health should not only be taught, but the importance of Self-Help
inculcated, and a Health conscience developed, so that these beneficent laws
may be willingly obeyed, for Nature is very benignant if her laws are obeyed,
but very ruthless to all who ignorantly or wilfully disobey them. The gradual
recuperative power of living organisms is, however, very great under
improved conditions of life.
Children and adolescents ought to be taught the love of truth, knowledge
of the marvellous universe in which they live, obedience to discipline, selfcontrol
by the development of the higher centres of the brain, and to play the
game strenuously and fairly.
Thehuman being, like any of the higher animals, consists of many millions
of small complex cells, each specially developed to carry out its special
duty and function for the benefit of the whole. The Science of Embryology