Health Committee's report / City of Melbourne.

  • Melbourne (Vic.). Health Committee.
Date:
[1949]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Health Committee's report / City of Melbourne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/48 (page 4)
    Report of the Medical Officer for Health Health Department, Town Hall Chambers, Melbourne. 2nd May, 1950. The Chairman and Members, Health Committee: Gentlemen, 1 beg to present my Annual Report for the year 1949. 1 feel 1 must preface this, my last report as Medical Officer of Health for the City, by expressing my appreciation of the kindness and consideration shown to me by the successive Lord Mayors, Aldermen, and Members of the Council, and particularly to the Chairman and members of the Health Committee, during the twenty-three years of my service. I inherited with my office a tradition of progress and research, as was evidenced by the immunisation campaign against diphtheria already inaugurated in the City and bv the existence of a Metropolitan Committee to combat infantile paralysis, the work of which was initiated and sustained by the Council. My chief interests on my arrival here were centred mainly in child welfare and in health education, and these have continued as my chief enthusiasm. In both spheres great progress has been made. As regards Child Welfare, it is not too much to say that it is the foundation, pillar or keystone—take your choice— of hygiene. And if 1 could direct the ambitions of this beautiful City with its lovely gardens, fine streets and its many amenities, it would be towards the boast that Melbourne was a grand place for children to live in. The amazing advances of medicine and its allied sciences in the last 100, and particularly in the last 50 years, have made it possible to say that the physical and mental needs of mothers, infants and children are now known— not perhaps in every detail for each individual, or in relation to the less common accidents of heredity and development—but in all the main outlines as applying to the average child'. It is clear that unless these needs are supplied, the oncoming generation must be stunted. No City can be fine if its inhabitants are stunted. No society can be stable unless its members are fully equipped as citizens. The first number of the British Medical Journal for 1950 was devoted to a review of the progress of medicine in the last 50 years, and an article illustrating that progress by vital statistics gives many startling figures, including those showing the astonishing improvement in infantile mortality and in the expectation of life at various ages. Even in distressed Britain, at present rates, half the girls born may expect to live be be 75, and half the boys to be 70, whilst in this relatively fortunate 1 ami the figures would be higher still. In almost every branch of medicine great progress has been achieved, particularly perhaps in the control of infections. Life is now much safer, freed from much of the tragedy of premature death and disablement; but this safer life cannot be enjoyed by all, or to the full, unless the needs of the children—Nature’s specifications for their physical and mental growth—are supplied. Infant Welfare in Australia, in Victoria, in Greater Melbourne, and in Melbourne City has progressed in a manner which bears comparison probably with any other parts of the world. I am proud of the child welfare work in Melbourne, the Council’s part in which has been carried on over the whole period by my two assistants, Doctors Kincaid and Bull, to whom, with their staff and the many workers in official and voluntary organisations with whom they have collaborated, the credit is mainly due.| I must pay tribute to the wonderful work of the voluntary organisations engaged in infant welfare, many of which were in active operation before my arrival in Melbourne. I would mention particularly the Victorian Baby Health Centres Association, which has trained most of the infant welfare nurses in the State and conducted the first centres in the City, and with which our centres are still affiliated; the Free Kindergarten Union of Victoria which has set and continually seeks to improve the high, standards of kindergarten work; and the principal churches which have for many years main¬ tained kindergartens in the City, pictures of some of which are shown in this report. It has been a great pleasure and encouragement to co-operate with the office-bearers and staffs, past and present, of all these bodies. Their help has been invaluable and is most gratefully acknowledged. The City of Melbourne has Infant welfare services, including its many kinder¬ gartens, which are perhaps not excelled by any comparable city anywhere, and it has adopted a comprehensive scheme for their extension; but though the foundations of the work seem sound and its progress encouraging, it is far from complete. A large proportion of our children must still be relatively stunted and uncivilised, unless the programme is completed and linked 'with similar great improvements that are needed in the schools proper.