Annual report on the health and medical services of the state of Queensland.

  • Queensland. Department of Health.
Date:
[1951]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report on the health and medical services of the state of Queensland. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    5/126 (page 3)
    evidence of under-feeding or over-feeding and who has attended a baby clinic is reported to the Director of Maternal and Child Welfare, who has each case investigated. Education of the medical and nursing pro¬ fessions in the problem of prematurity was assisted by the distribution of a publication on this question to doctors and practising obstetric nurses. The booklet received favourable com¬ ment in the “Medical Journal of Australia.” Division of School Health Services. The increase in medical, dental and nursing staffs has enabled a greater service to be given to the school children of Queensland. One medical officer has headquarters in Towns¬ ville. She has examined children as far north as Normanton inland. She is about to visit the far northern coastal areas as far north as Thurs¬ day Island. The incidence of diseases due to lack of per¬ sonal hygiene has decreased, and this may be attributed in part to the health education being carried out by teachers, as a result of the pub¬ lication of “Subject: Health,” by the Queens¬ land Health Education Council. * I . — l Anthropological research carried out confirms that children living in the tropics differ little from those in sub-tropical areas. Lady Mellanby, a world authority on dental nutrition, visited several schools and examined five-year-old children. She found the incidence of dental caries greater than in England. This is probably accounted for by a better balanced diet forced on English children during the War. Much has been said on the use of sodium fluoride in the prevention of dental caries but much research work is necessary before its use can be recommended. A trachoma survey was carried out during the year in western and north-western Queensland. An ophthalmic surgeon visited 70 schools and examined 5,941 children: 111 were found to be infected with trachoma. The majority of these children were coloured. The greatest incidence was found in the Cloncurry area. Due to better hygiene, trachoma is not nearly as prevalent as it was 20 years ago. Division of Mental Hygiene. Lack of nurses, particularly female nurses, continues to hamper the efficient staffing of mental hospitals. A legacy of the war—insufficient accommo¬ dation for mentally-sick patients—is another problem, but the construction of the new Charters Towers Mental Hospital is being pushed ahead with all possible speed. In recent years there has been a decided increase in senile psychoses which is a reflection of the increased number of old people in our population. Psychiatric clinics have now been established at the base hospitals in Brisbane, Toowoomba, Townsville, and Cairns, and these continue to perform much useful work in guiding those who are unable to withstand the stresses of modern life. In addition, a separate Psychiatric Clinic under the supervision of the Director of Mental Hygiene functions independently in Brisbane, and the report of the activities of this unit make interesting reading. Division of Laboratory Services. Laboratory of Micro-Biology and Pathology. The return of the Director from, a Rockefeller Scholarship which enabled him to study in the United States and England has resulted in a re-organisation of the Laboratory. Because of the knowledge gained, new techniques which have required modern equipment have been introduced and have led to an improvement in the range and in the quality of work performed by this important institution. The growth of the Division of Tuberculosis has been such that a new laboratory is being set up solely for the diagnosis of tuberculosis. Complement fixation tests for the diagnosis of rickettsial infections (other than scrub typhus) and for the lymphgranuloma— psittacosis groups of diseases, will be performed in the near future, and the laboratory will co-operate actively with the Queensland Institute of Medical Research in the field station recently established at Innisfail for the diagnosis of fevers in North Queensland. The report of the Laboratory mentions the existence of a new disease allied to lymph granuloma, and it has some remarks on cerebral calcification and the occurrence of nocardiosis. These indicate that the Laboratory staff is performing routine work with its eyes open. Government Chemical, Laboratory. The interesting report of this Laboratory includes some pertinent remarks on the intro¬ duction of chemicals into food. Food pro¬ cessors have a tendency to add chemicals to foods for the purpose of improving their taste or increasing their keeping qualities without adequate preliminary study of their potential toxic effects in man. Many examples come to mind But the agene process of treating flour to improve its baking quality is typical of this type of adulteration. The public must be protected as much from the unknown chemical as from the known chemical, and the policy has been to permit only the addition of such substances as are known to be harmless. It is no use allowing a chemical to be added to a food and then discovering, twenty years later, that the health of the popu¬ lation has become seriously affected.