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PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION FOR THE COMBINED ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES
592
PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION FOR THE COMBINED ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES
PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION FOR THE COMBINED ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES THERE will shortly be sentation in Parliament
election for the reprefor the Universities of
an
Durham, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, Birmingham, Bristol, and Reading. Nomination day is to-day, March 5th, and polling will commence Sir Henry Brackenbury, on Monday, March 15th. a vice-president of the British Medical Association and of the Association of Education Committees, is standing as an independent; Sir Francis Lindley, recently ambassador extraordinary to Japan, as the national conservative and constitutional candidate ; Mr. T. E. Harvey, formerly M.P. for West Leeds, as an independent progressive; and Mr. F. 0. Darvall, director of research and discussion for the EnglishSpeaking Union, as an independent candidate to the extent that he will not accept any party whip but at the same time will give general support to the National Government. In his election address, Sir Henry Brackenbury, the only medical candidate, says :The main hope for the future of this country is the "
cultivation of childhood and the full development of all its immense potentialities. The chief care of the nation should be to help and encourage motherhood and to make it as safe as possible ; and to secure for children, even from the prenatal stage up to full adolescence, such a physical and mental environment as will permit of the development of a complete and many-sided personality. I appreciate the efforts which the present Government have made and are still making to these ends ; but bolder, more continuous, and more coordinated efforts are required. A fuller and integrated scheme for a national maternity service is immediately necessary. Nursery and open-air schools should be further encouraged, and many of the older school buildings should be radically altered or replaced. The provision of playing fields, gymnasia, and swimming baths should be facilitated. Restrictive regulations on secondary school buildings, made when economy in the was urgently required, should be rescinded ; planning of new schools, both elementary and secondary, due regard should be paid to the provision of suitable and sufficient dining-hall and kitchen accommodation. A larger proportion of specially qualified, trained, skilled teachers is required in most schools, not least in those for infants and junior scholars and for retarded children. The coming considerable fall in the number of children of school age should not be used for an immediate reduction in teaching staffs, but rather as an opportunity for securing smaller classes and a higher proportion of teachers to children. It should be made possible for teachers to take their due share in public life."
On the urgent question of nutrition, while pointing out that there are no exact criteria by which degrees of nutrition can be measured, Sir Henry points out that recent statistics show that in the elementary
definite proofs of under-nourishment, inter-relationship between physical training and nutrition and mental training is so close that they cannot properly be separated. He says:
schools there while the
"
I
am
are
in full sympathy with the
proposals of the present
Government in this regard. I was a member of the Executive Committee of the Central Council of Recreative Physical Training and of the Special Committees of the British Medical Association on Nutrition and on Physical
Education, which have had
profound an effect in guiding public opinion and formulating policy on these questions. I hope that experience gained in these investigations and surveys might prove useful in the designing of practical measures for development. The gaps still remaining in the continuity of care for children and young persons should be filled ; and the permitted hours of labour of those who have entered industry shortened. The dependants of persons insured under the National so
Health Insurance Acts should be included in that health system, and some needed extensions and improvements
of that service should be effected. Indeed, the time is ripe for the initiation of a comprehensive general medical service for the nation based upon the prevention of disease, the promotion of positive health, and the provision of skilled medical care and attention, both general and specialist, for those who are ill. Such a scheme should be established after full consultation with the medical profession. The need for the care of mental health, especially for those distressing conditions of fear, anxiety, obsession, and the like, both in children and adults, which cause about one-third of the incapacitating illness of the country, is quite as great as that for attention to physique and to bodilv ills. " Biological, psychological, and medical research into many aspects of maternity, mentality, and educational methods, as well as research into various branches of£ technology and agriculture, should be more fully aided bv the State, preferably under the auspices of the univer. sities of the country."
Pointing out that a well-educated and properly used medical profession is the best safeguard to the public health, Sir Henry stresses the great importance to the public of medical education, a subject with which he has been prominently concerned in many I am convinced," he says, " that recent inquiries. most of the changes in the newly prescribed curriculum will tend to the improvement of what was already good, changes in medical science, social needs, and pedagogic methods are so rapid and significant that continued efforts are required to keep medical education fully adapted to the needs of the community." Sir Henry concludes his address by affirming his reliance on the League of Nations, whose success in many spheres, he points out, has been far greater than is commonly supposed ; certain major failures he holds to point to the greater effectiveness which might be arrived at by a modification of methods. "
INFECTIOUS DISEASE IN ENGLAND AND WALES DURING THE WEEK ENDED FEB. 20TH, 1937
Notifications.—The following cases of infectious during the week : Small-pox, 0 ; diphtheria, 1156 ; enteric fever, 30 ; pneumonia (primary or influenzal), 1881 ; puerperal fever, 46 ; puerperal pyrexia, 136 ; cerebrospinal fever, 45 ; acute poliomyelitis, 5 ; encephalitis lethargica, 10 ; continued fever, 1 (Leatherhead); dysentery, 59 ; ophthalmia neonatorum, 93. No case of cholera, plague, or typhus fever was notified during the week.
disease were notified scarlet fever, 1587 ;
Notifications of acute pneumonia in England and Wales were In London itself there per cent. above expectation. 55 per cent. below. The number of cases in the Infectious Hospitals of the London County Council on Feb. 26th was 3301, which included : Scarlet
only 7 were
fever, 841; diphtheria, 1002 ;measles, 30 ; whooping-cough, 571; puerperal fever, 18 mothers (plus 10 babies); encephalitis lethargica, 283 ; poliomyelitis, 3. At. St. Margaret’s Hospital there were 19 babies (plus 9 mothers) with ophthalmia neonatorum.
Deaths.—In 122 great towns, including London, there was no death from small-pox or enteric fever, 9 (0) from measles, 4 (1) from scarlet fever, 43 (9) from whooping-cough, 35 (2) from diphtheria, 39 (12) from diarrhoea and enteritis under two years, and 423 (33) from influenza. The figures in parentheses are those for London itself. Of the 339 deaths from influenza in the great towns of England and Wales outside Greater London, the largest totals were
reported from Liverpool 29, Manchester 25, Birmingham 23, Stoke-on-Trent 19, Hull 13. Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Walsall each 11, Leeds and Middlesbrough each 10. With the sole exception of Leeds all these figures are lower than in the previous week. Corresponding figures for Scottish and Irish towns were : Edinburgh 14, Glasgow 12, Dublin 20, Belfast 6-in each case except Belfast a drop on the previous week. Birmingham reported 2 deaths from measles. Fatal cases of whooping-cough were scattered over 20 great towns : Liverpool reported 7, Manchester 4. Fatal diphtheria was reported from 2 7 towns: 3 from Wolverhampton, not more than 2 from any other. The number of stillbirths notified during the week was 268 (corresponding to a rate of 40 per 1000 total births), including 41 in London.
PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION FOR THE COMBINED ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES
PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION FOR THE COMBINED ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES THERE will shortly be sentation in Parliament
election for the reprefor the Universities of
an
Durham, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, Birmingham, Bristol, and Reading. Nomination day is to-day, March 5th, and polling will commence Sir Henry Brackenbury, on Monday, March 15th. a vice-president of the British Medical Association and of the Association of Education Committees, is standing as an independent; Sir Francis Lindley, recently ambassador extraordinary to Japan, as the national conservative and constitutional candidate ; Mr. T. E. Harvey, formerly M.P. for West Leeds, as an independent progressive; and Mr. F. 0. Darvall, director of research and discussion for the EnglishSpeaking Union, as an independent candidate to the extent that he will not accept any party whip but at the same time will give general support to the National Government. In his election address, Sir Henry Brackenbury, the only medical candidate, says :The main hope for the future of this country is the "
cultivation of childhood and the full development of all its immense potentialities. The chief care of the nation should be to help and encourage motherhood and to make it as safe as possible ; and to secure for children, even from the prenatal stage up to full adolescence, such a physical and mental environment as will permit of the development of a complete and many-sided personality. I appreciate the efforts which the present Government have made and are still making to these ends ; but bolder, more continuous, and more coordinated efforts are required. A fuller and integrated scheme for a national maternity service is immediately necessary. Nursery and open-air schools should be further encouraged, and many of the older school buildings should be radically altered or replaced. The provision of playing fields, gymnasia, and swimming baths should be facilitated. Restrictive regulations on secondary school buildings, made when economy in the was urgently required, should be rescinded ; planning of new schools, both elementary and secondary, due regard should be paid to the provision of suitable and sufficient dining-hall and kitchen accommodation. A larger proportion of specially qualified, trained, skilled teachers is required in most schools, not least in those for infants and junior scholars and for retarded children. The coming considerable fall in the number of children of school age should not be used for an immediate reduction in teaching staffs, but rather as an opportunity for securing smaller classes and a higher proportion of teachers to children. It should be made possible for teachers to take their due share in public life."
On the urgent question of nutrition, while pointing out that there are no exact criteria by which degrees of nutrition can be measured, Sir Henry points out that recent statistics show that in the elementary
definite proofs of under-nourishment, inter-relationship between physical training and nutrition and mental training is so close that they cannot properly be separated. He says:
schools there while the
"
I
am
are
in full sympathy with the
proposals of the present
Government in this regard. I was a member of the Executive Committee of the Central Council of Recreative Physical Training and of the Special Committees of the British Medical Association on Nutrition and on Physical
Education, which have had
profound an effect in guiding public opinion and formulating policy on these questions. I hope that experience gained in these investigations and surveys might prove useful in the designing of practical measures for development. The gaps still remaining in the continuity of care for children and young persons should be filled ; and the permitted hours of labour of those who have entered industry shortened. The dependants of persons insured under the National so
Health Insurance Acts should be included in that health system, and some needed extensions and improvements
of that service should be effected. Indeed, the time is ripe for the initiation of a comprehensive general medical service for the nation based upon the prevention of disease, the promotion of positive health, and the provision of skilled medical care and attention, both general and specialist, for those who are ill. Such a scheme should be established after full consultation with the medical profession. The need for the care of mental health, especially for those distressing conditions of fear, anxiety, obsession, and the like, both in children and adults, which cause about one-third of the incapacitating illness of the country, is quite as great as that for attention to physique and to bodilv ills. " Biological, psychological, and medical research into many aspects of maternity, mentality, and educational methods, as well as research into various branches of£ technology and agriculture, should be more fully aided bv the State, preferably under the auspices of the univer. sities of the country."
Pointing out that a well-educated and properly used medical profession is the best safeguard to the public health, Sir Henry stresses the great importance to the public of medical education, a subject with which he has been prominently concerned in many I am convinced," he says, " that recent inquiries. most of the changes in the newly prescribed curriculum will tend to the improvement of what was already good, changes in medical science, social needs, and pedagogic methods are so rapid and significant that continued efforts are required to keep medical education fully adapted to the needs of the community." Sir Henry concludes his address by affirming his reliance on the League of Nations, whose success in many spheres, he points out, has been far greater than is commonly supposed ; certain major failures he holds to point to the greater effectiveness which might be arrived at by a modification of methods. "
INFECTIOUS DISEASE IN ENGLAND AND WALES DURING THE WEEK ENDED FEB. 20TH, 1937
Notifications.—The following cases of infectious during the week : Small-pox, 0 ; diphtheria, 1156 ; enteric fever, 30 ; pneumonia (primary or influenzal), 1881 ; puerperal fever, 46 ; puerperal pyrexia, 136 ; cerebrospinal fever, 45 ; acute poliomyelitis, 5 ; encephalitis lethargica, 10 ; continued fever, 1 (Leatherhead); dysentery, 59 ; ophthalmia neonatorum, 93. No case of cholera, plague, or typhus fever was notified during the week.
disease were notified scarlet fever, 1587 ;
Notifications of acute pneumonia in England and Wales were In London itself there per cent. above expectation. 55 per cent. below. The number of cases in the Infectious Hospitals of the London County Council on Feb. 26th was 3301, which included : Scarlet
only 7 were
fever, 841; diphtheria, 1002 ;measles, 30 ; whooping-cough, 571; puerperal fever, 18 mothers (plus 10 babies); encephalitis lethargica, 283 ; poliomyelitis, 3. At. St. Margaret’s Hospital there were 19 babies (plus 9 mothers) with ophthalmia neonatorum.
Deaths.—In 122 great towns, including London, there was no death from small-pox or enteric fever, 9 (0) from measles, 4 (1) from scarlet fever, 43 (9) from whooping-cough, 35 (2) from diphtheria, 39 (12) from diarrhoea and enteritis under two years, and 423 (33) from influenza. The figures in parentheses are those for London itself. Of the 339 deaths from influenza in the great towns of England and Wales outside Greater London, the largest totals were
reported from Liverpool 29, Manchester 25, Birmingham 23, Stoke-on-Trent 19, Hull 13. Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Walsall each 11, Leeds and Middlesbrough each 10. With the sole exception of Leeds all these figures are lower than in the previous week. Corresponding figures for Scottish and Irish towns were : Edinburgh 14, Glasgow 12, Dublin 20, Belfast 6-in each case except Belfast a drop on the previous week. Birmingham reported 2 deaths from measles. Fatal cases of whooping-cough were scattered over 20 great towns : Liverpool reported 7, Manchester 4. Fatal diphtheria was reported from 2 7 towns: 3 from Wolverhampton, not more than 2 from any other. The number of stillbirths notified during the week was 268 (corresponding to a rate of 40 per 1000 total births), including 41 in London.