Bengal public health report.

  • Bengal (India). Public Health Department.
Date:
[1927]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Bengal public health report. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    72/138 (page 70)
    exhibitions and 32 baby shows were organised during the year, compared with 10 exhibitions and 20 baby shows held during the previous year. Besides these, as usual the district boards, municipalities, ladies’ associations, the Young Men’s Christian Association and other institutions, educational and other¬ wise, requisitioned the services of these, officers. (4) The Eastern Bengal Railway demonstration train was a great success last year. It was organized as the result of a suggestion made by the Public Health Department in the columns of an English local newspaper. No less than 186,000 people visited the demonstration health car and profited by the posters, models and lectures which were arranged for them. It is hoped that this will become an annual function, and all those whom we intend to reach in the mufassal will be gradu¬ ally benefited by the scheme. A new attempt is now being made to carry on health propaganda in the mufassal through the Indian Broadcasting Com¬ pany, Limited, whereby every month a health lecture would be delivered at Calcutta for the wireless subscribers all over Bengal. A series of health lectures is being delivered to the prisoners in the Central and Presidency Jails at Calcutta. The approximate total number of people who attended the various shows and lectures might at the most modest computation work up to 8 lakhs. (5) Sixty-one sets of multi-coloured magic-lantern slides were designed and prepared by the publicity branch. The two films on maternity and child welfare produced locally by the Public Health Department were greatly appre¬ ciated by the public, and the demand for them is so great that one copy of the film “ Debdut ” had to be run 6 times in the course of a day in certain exhibitions, with the result that the film almost ran out its span of life almost within 5 months of its production. This was also shown at Calcutta during the Con¬ gress of the Far Eastern Association of Tropical Medicine at the request of the authorities, and was well appreciated, so that after its exhibition delegates from Korea, Java and Japan inter¬ viewed the Publicity Officer and express¬ ed their willingness to have a copy prepared like the one the department possessed, with changes suiting their own local conditions. In order to impress the laity, nothing appeals more than visual representa¬ tions, and it is imperatively necessary that the production of new films embracing almost all the preventible diseases should forthwith be taken up and proceeded with. A move must be made in this direction if the educative aspect of the propaganda has to have a lasting effect on the public, and Govern¬ ment has been approached for a recur¬ ring and non-recurring grant on this head as well as for the general expan¬ sion of the publicity branch as a whole. Besides these, the publicity branch is at present equipped with 24 sets of films including 38 reels on various preventible diseases and maternity and child welfare. (6) During the year under review, the following coloured posters were prepared by the Publicity Officer :— (1) A Calcutta Baby Week Exhibition. (2) Health outweighs medicine. (3) Average longevity of various countries. (4) Foods and vitamins. Three hundred thousand leaflets and pamphlets on preventible diseases were prepared and printed at the Govern¬ ment Press. During the course of the year, the total number of leaflets and posters which were distributed came up to about 250,000. The posters and leaflets designed and prepared by this section have proved very popular and so great is the demand that people are willing to buy them. In fact, the Burma Public Health Department asked for permission to print some of the posters designed by the publicity branch for publishing in Burma. The National Baby Week, Bombay, and the Central Provinces Publicity Officer have also asked for permission to copy our posters. (7) The propaganda work by the officers of this section was instrumental in getting about 3,000 to 3,500 pilgrims inoculated with anti-cholera vaccine at the Howrah station before their depar¬ ture for the great Kumbh Mela and the Puri Rath-jaitra festival; also the junior officers of this branch are to be mentioned for having been able to perform about 1,500 inoculations amongst a refractory mass of Muhammadans in the Diamond Harbour subdivision, when other parties had failed in this objective.