Nursing and Health

Abstract

Y OU all will, I hope, reach the mid-period of life, that age period or span of life which is or should be so significant. It is the time of life when you should be of the greatest value and service to society. It is that span of life which carries the chief burdens of the affairs of man. It is responsible for the support, direction, and education of the on-coming generation. Assuredly the quality of service, whether it be of the nursing profession or of any other vocation of man, should be at its height. Quality service depends on education, training, and ideals, on the one hand, and on a sound, vigorous, and harmoniously developed bodymachine-an energy-generating human motor of the first magnitude-on the other hand. All of you in the nursing profession are thoroughly imbued with, and accept without reservation, the proposition that education, training, and ideals are essential to quality nursing. In fact, it is a postulate with you and continually drives you on. Membership and participations in professional societies; subscriptions to and earnest studies of journals devoted to nursing and kindred subjects; attendance at institutes, summer schools, and universities; continual efforts to maintain an open and inquiring mind; all these show that you are wholly consigned to the principle that education, training, and ideals are essential requisites for quality nursing. But what about that other requisite, health, the energy-generating body motor of the first magnitude? Most of us fall down when it comes to this essential factor to quality service. Sufficient physical examinations and tabulations have been made for the age span of from 35 to 50 or 60 years, so that we have a fairly accurate picture of the health conditions of our people during this most significant time of life. Approximately, 98 per cent have defects and only 2 per cent are normal, free from body-mind blemishes. In this group, in addition to many defects of the special sense organs, of teeth, focal infections, of digestion and nutrition, under weight, overweight, of postural and other bone-joint-muscle structures, and of the nervous system-emotional instability, the ravages of the degenerative diseases-heart, blood pressure, arteries-apoplexy, and kidneysBright's disease, manifest themselves. Unfortunately, this group of diseases is not associated with disturbing symptoms until well advanced. They come on like the thief in the night, insidiously, and reach irreparable stages before we are aware of them. The early detection and arresting of the degenerative group of diseases can be done only through the efficient periodic health examination-the annual overhauling. Of the 1,304,109 deaths in the United States in 1932, Utah excepted, 300,000, or close to one-fourth, were due to the degenerative group of diseases. Eighty per cent of all life insurance rejections are due to this group. Cancer is a blight of which women must be intelligently aware. One woman in eight, after the age of 40, dies from this affliction. Diabetes is increasing its death toll in this age span especially among women. After all, it is surprising how very few disorders are responsible for our national mortality. Five groups of disorders claim more than a million of our 1,300,000 deaths. These are the degenerative group, the respiratory group