Evolving a Healthy Society
IN 1926 a small group of young people came to the conclusion that if the study of human biology was to become useful•in practice, it must be based not on the individual, but on the family—the " cell " which forms and grows and splits and forms anew to carry on the human race. They began to test their theory in a little house opened as a health centre in south London. The families of the neighbourhood were invited to join at a small weekly charge, and membership carried the privilege (and condition) that each individual of every family-member should undergo a health overhaul on entry, and thereafter periodically.
Over a hundred families joined. Their health level was unex- pectedly low ; but the idea of health had its attraction for them. At the end of three years, however, it had become clear that accurate diagnosis, and adequate treatment, were not in themselves enough
to maintain health. These biologists in search of material there. fore set out on an ambitious scheme: the building of an entirely new kind of centre of communal life spacious enough to give 2,oaa families not only seemly provision for regular health overhaul, but also the means of fully developing the potentialities of their minds and of their bodies. Plans were made, money was collected, and the Pioneer Health Centre was opened in 1935. The Peckham Experiment—third study in a series of four—tells of the results, often in a way that is very moving Over 1,200 families joined, made up of 3,911 individuals of both sexes and all ages. The summarised report of the first overhaul is startling and appalling: only 273 males (out of 5,946) and 85 females (out of 1,965) were free from all diagnosable disability—and of that small percentage by no means all were functionally fit. Oi the rest, more than half had regarded themselves as well. And this was the situation in a neighbourhood selected because it is without extremes of wealth or poverty, and had a reasonably stable population in steady work in a variety of trades.
Some member-families, unable to stomach the strong meat al self-directed activity offered them by the Centre, soon faded away. The others—families at varying stages of social development—kid made remarkable progress towards social and family integration, and, perhaps even more important, had demonstrated the infectious- ness of health : when the Centre closed in 1939 owing to the break- up of the family by war conditions.
Since the idea that natural man is healthy is as untenable as the idea that he is good (are not the germs that plague him also part of nature?), it is encouraging to read how much the health, and therefore the happiness and usefulness to himselt and others. of the average man can be improved if he is provided with an agreeable field of self-development. All who wish their fellow- men well will wish to see not only a resumption of this hope- inspiring experiment at the earliest possible moment, but also the springing up of similar centres all over the country. Periodical health overhaul for all (envisaged by the Peckham pioneers) could in the course of a few generations eliminate preventable disease and reduce the ravages of the non-preventable ; and the social integration produced by participation in self-organised and accept- able communal activities would promote that high degree of interest in living which is the surest stimulus to health:
- IRENE CLEPHANE
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