Health in Britain

The Chief Medical Officer of the British Ministry of Health flew the ocean last week to explain to the U.S. how Great Britain, with an inadequate war supply of doctors, nurses, medicines, food, has organized its few resources so that the great mass of its citizens show "no obvious deterioration of health." To 2,000 U.S. Public Health workers at their Atlantic City convention, Sir William Wilson Jameson explained Britain's new system of public medical care in wartime.

Facts on wartime health:

> About 400,000 hospital beds were prepared for emergencies. To everyone's surprise, there were more empty beds than emergencies. Most of the beds are now turned over to civilian use: the Government pays the bills. Thus, said Sir Wilson, more people get care than ever before.

> Although London has 8,000 miles of water mains, and every big main has been broken at some time or other, there has been no typhoid fever. Reason: large quantities of chlorine were immediately poured into the water. There has been, confessed Sir Wilson, a good deal of paratyphoid, a milder cousin of typhoid. This was traced to unclean bakeshops.

> There are now 300 wartime nurseries for children under five. This has made it possible to immunize thousands of babies against diphtheria. The diphtheria rate, which was formerly "shameful," has dropped.

> Since working hours in industry have been raised to a top limit of 65 a week for men, 60 for women, the rate of two serious diseases has soared: 1) tuberculosis among young women; 2) industrial poisoning, mostly in munitions factories. ^ So far, no serious dietary deficiency diseases have been observed, although Sir Wilson is sure they will turn up in the future. Although all food is scarce, only the following are rationed: meat, bacon, butter, margarine, cheese, tea, sugar, jam.* All persons must register for milk; mothers and infants get a pint a day, schoolchildren a little more. Although this is low, it is actually more than most of them got before the war, said Sir Wilson. His great worry, he said last week, is in the shortage of meat and cheese for workers in heavy industry and for growing children between 14 and 20.

> "Insanity has not increased," stated Sir Wilson. Nor have neuroses risen. After intensive air raids, a number of people invariably suffer from severe anxiety but this usually passes after a week of good care. The suicide rate is down; there is no increase in alcoholism, but juvenile delinquency is up, probably, said Sir Wilson, because "no one's home is his own."

The possibility of a bigger influenza epidemic than the U.S. has had in 20 years was forecast by public health doctors at a meeting in Atlantic City. Reasons: 1) the nation has been steadily losing the partial immunity it got from the flu scourges of World War I; 2) the virus that caused mild regional epidemics last year has probably been growing in strength; 3) once more hordes of men are crowded in Army camps.

* Last week Secretary of Agriculture Claude Wickard said that Great Britain must have a billion dollars worth of U.S. food in the next five months.

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