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6
happen in 30 or 40 years time is somewhat akin to a voyage
into eternity. However, this particular form of health education
must continue, and teachers as well as doctors and
health visitors have their responsibilities, particularly when
one bears in mind the seductive advertisements on television
and in the Press which are designed to inculcate, in the
adolescent mind, the impression that smoking is a sign of
emancipation and growing up and a stepping-stone to social
ease and acceptance.
In considering lung diseases in general and perhaps
chronic bronchitis in particular, one must not forget that the
abatement of atmospheric pollution is one of the most important
tasks facing both central and local government at
the present time. In a way this problem is comparable in its
complexity with the cleaning up of urban water supplies in
the 19th century and just as important. The Clean Air Act,
1956 grants, among its many provisions, permissive powers
to local authorities to declare smoke control areas in which
only smokeless fuels will be burnt in suitable boilers and
domestic heating appliances. In Erith a beginning has been
made, the Council having authorised a pilot survey to be
carried out in a selected area with a view to obtaining
reliable information as to the cost of replacing unsuitable
appliances and adapting others to make them capable of
burning smokeless fuels. It took over 50 years to provide
a clean and safe water supply to the great towns thus ridding
the population of such diseases as cholera, typhoid and
dysentery. By sustained and determined action in regard to
clean air one may similarly see, in years to come, a reduction
in lung diseases which are responsible for so much
mortality and illhealth as well as the removal, from the
atmosphere, of pollution which causes much unnecessary
work for the harassed housewife and does untold damage
to vegetation and the fabric of buildings. We have, now
installed in the Health Department, a volumetric apparatus
for the daily estimation of sulphur dioxide (one of the most
lethal constituents of smoke) and figures are being collected
which will serve as a guide to future action in regard to
smoke abatement.
It is unfortunate, to say the least of it, that the time
when the prevention of atmospheric pollution is becoming
a matter of major policy should coincide with the introduction
of yet another serious hazard; this time from nuclear
and allied radiation resulting from the peaceful uses of
atomic energy in industry including the use of x-rays and
of radioactive isotopes and from international efforts to build