A PALACE OF HEALTH IN a few days' time the
Pioneer Health Centre at St. Mary's Road, Peckham, will have completed the first year of its work. An experiment will have been successfully begun which can be used with as much advantage, to the health of the nation as Sir John Orr's researches into nutrition. For the Health Centre is an attempt to improve health through environment, which, as Sir John has emphasised, is equally with diet a determining factor of health. Such an attempt is certainly necessary, for, despite immense improvements in social conditions, the health of our people is not satisfactory. Together with improvements in hygiene and in the treatment of disease, there has been an increase in the strain and exhaustion and complexity of life. We no longer see, as we can see in more backward countries, the clear signs of disease in mutilated bodieS and linibs and faces, and in high mortality rates, but we find exhaustion, ill-health, undernourishment, showing theniselves in loss of vitality, in deficiencies of growth, in bad nerves, and in bodies which, though whole, are inefficient. So much so, indeed, that, despite all efforts to "prevent disease, • despite improvements in medical services, we are in danger of becoming a physically defective nation ; and physical defects are quick to affect social, political and cultural life.
The Health Centre at Peckham is an invaluable example of how to rectify these deficiencies. It was born ten years ago when two doctors took a private house in Peckham and converted it for use as a health Centre ; but not till last year was the beautiful building in St. Mary's Road opened, which allowed them to apply their ideas adequately. It is, by its Very appearance, as great an addition to the amenities of the district as St. Paul's is to the City. It is a club where men and women may swim, dance, fence, play games and receive physical training ; it has an Outdoor running-track and a hall for theatres and concerts ; a library, a cafeteria, and a kitchen ; a children's playground and bathing-pool, and pre- natal and child-welfare clinics. Thus it provides the means of recreation and of receiving medical advice which are indispensable under the conditions of present industrial life. But it is a club of which no one may be a member save on two conditions. He must undergo a double medical examination, one in the laboratory and one in the clinic, and he must undergo periodic medical inspection, which enables the &clots to detect symptoms of incipient disease, and of under-nourishment ; where disease is manifest, the members arc directed where to receive treatment, but the greatest value of this supervision is in pre- venting the development of disease. It is a bitter reflection on social conditions that many fear to undergo the test because, having already borne the expense of one illness, they fear to be told that the expense is necessary again. But the Centre, in one year, has 1,200 members, and when it has 2,000 hopes to be self-supporting. There could be no better proof of the necessity, in a typical industrial district, neither slum nor suburb, for the work which it performs than the fact that, of 1,200 members examined, 400 showed symptoms of diseased con- ditions.
No one, moreover, may join the Centre except as a member of a family, for in this way it is possible to supervise and improve the conditions of family life which, in most cases, are the determining factor in health. Thus the Centre prevents the growth of disease, and raises the standard of health by means which are based upon a sound and thorough analysis of social conditions ; and it acts, in addition, as a research station which enquires exactly into the Meaning of Health and into " the equipment and technique necessary to cultivate it."
The co-ordination of research, provision of re- creation, and supervision of health is thus the principle which has guided the Centre in its work ; it is perhaps the only principle which is now adequate to the improvement of health under modern industrial conditions. For, in the future, there is greater improvement to be expected from the prevention than the cure of disease. Present arrangements for the treatment of disease may be limited, but in essence they are already sufficient to perform all that can be expected from them. But a nation may he free of manifest disease, its mortality rates be low, and yet its members may be devitalised and un- healthy. To raise the standard of general health demands both the prevention of disease and the provision of means for counteracting the devitalising effects of modern conditions ; and this is possible only by study and analysis of the actual organisation of the family, the factory, social relations, nourish- ment and physical environment which determine health. It is this principle which has inspired the work of the Centre, even in the details of its architecture, and there is every reason why it should be applied on a national scale. The expense would be more than justified by the saving on expenditure for treatment of disease and the immense gain to the nation in efficiency and productivity.
The difficulties which the Centre has had to face arc many, particularly the financial. But its value has been recognised, and already, within a year, four towns have enquired how they may best adapt its principles to their own conditions ; it is hoped that in a year's time affiliated bodies will be applying the ideas Whith have been worked out -at Peckham. There cannot be too many of them ; there certainly will not be enough. For there is no large town in England which does not need such a Centre, to give its inhabitants the recreation, the protection against disease, and the restoration of vitality, which are essential under the exhausting conditions of indus- trial life today.
Previous page
