Neglect of Minor Disease

IN the course of his annual report upon tlie state * of the Public Health, Sir George Newman, the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health, calls particular attention to the neglect of minor disease :? The attention (he says) is so easily arrested by the ravages of the great diseases like smallpox, influenza, cancer, tuberculosis or venereal, that we are liable to forget that the largest burden of our invalidity, and the chief contribution to premature mortality, are due to the neglect of the comparatively minor or incipient forms of sickness and ill-health. Moreover, they are not only causes of incapacity, but they lay the foundations of the maj or diseases. The public health service is naturally and properly designed to combat gross evils, but it will never be really effective until and unless the origins of those gross evils are dealt with, and amongst such origins is neglected minor disease. This is one of the great spheres where the medical practitioner co-operates with the Public Health Service. It is not easy to over-estimate the harvest of sickness and death directly attributable to the neglect of such maladies as dental caries, oral sepsis, habitual constipation, neglected colds, dyspepsia, measles, or discharging ears.