The Health bulletin [serial] - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

July, 1927 The Health Bulletin 11
"Secondly, broad educational plans
of preventive medicine and periodic
health examinations brighten the
chances of human life. Life insurance
companies have played a notable part
in this phase of the work.
"Thirdly, a better knowledge of personal
and public hygiene, dietary rules
and the systematic development of
physical exercises in the home, school
and outdoor sports contribute to the
same end.
"Lastly, the improved treatment of
tuberculosis has reduced it from its
position as the greatest cause of death
to a secondary place.
Some Greensboro Friends. July Weather
Gets All Ages Ont in the Open
"Reasonable expectation of prolonged
life will be further increased when
medical science has discovered the
cause and cure of cancer and men and
women have learned to live less strenuously."
The foregoing is an interesting
commentary accentuating the requirements
of a personal periodic health examination
at intervals of one year, or
better six months. This periodic examination,
while often necessary and
practical for people of all ages, including
even young people, should become
an essential habit for people past middle
age.
The prevention of disease embraces
one of the greatest fields of activity in
relation to mankind. More than half
the diseases the human race is heir to
can be very easily prevented either outright
or controlled in their incipient
stages. It has become a habit, of course,
for the owner of an automobile or a
mowing machine or other piece of expensive
and valuable machinery to
have it carefully gone over at periodic
intervals for the purix)se of discovering
anything wrong with the mechanism
and so correct such defects immediately,
therefore saving life or preventing
the deterioration of valuable
property.
It may be that this habit is looked
upon with more favor by the general
public because of the age old respect
for property values. This is natural
when we come to realize that only two
or three hundred years ago in one of
the most civilized countries in the
world the life of a rabbit in the woods
of a nobleman was valued a great deal
higher than the life of a man, if the
man happened to be a peasant or a
poor man. Evidences of this evaluation
were set forth it is said in numerous
records where these unfortunate individuals
were promptly hung or shot
for the crime of poaching a rabbit from
their rich neighbor.
The same feeling exists in the subconscious
mind of many people with
reference to the law regarding the
registration of births of children.
t>everal states in the Union even now
do not have an effective law on their
statute books. The habit of registering
pedigreed dogs and cows and hogs and
so on goes back almost to where the
memory of man runneth not to the
contrary. The onlj- reason that can
be assigned is that the dog or the hog
represents a money value, and if pedigi'eed
or blooded it naturally represents
a greater money value than the
ordinary cur or razor-back.
It is to be hoped that the public will
grasp the significance of a careful
systematic examination by a competent
doctor whether the individual suspects
any physical defect or not. It is a
good habit to get into and, like the
above quoted writer points out, will be
one good method of further extending
the span of life.