Heilbrigðisskýrslur - 01.12.1938, Side 193

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culture and sport, in mountaineering and other out-of-door pursuits
of the young' people -both in summer and winter, also an improved
standard of nutrition with an increase in the use of fresh food and
vegetables (among other things the adoption of green-house culture
with natural hot water supply) and the greatly increased consumption
of milk in the towns and villages and on the whole the increasing
understanding' of the people in general and ot the doctors and the
authorities of the fact that however important it may be to care for
and cure the sick, the prevention of sickness by improving the
general standard of health and living by every kind of precautionary
nieasure is still more important.
The Icelanders are not far from having' the lowest death rate in
the world, and to achieve this it is really only necessary to check
still further and permanently the ravages of tuberculosis as effectively
as many other nations have succeeded in doing, not to mention the
possibility of lowering the tremendously high proportion of deaths
l>y accident. But it ought to be possible to do even more. If the Ice-
landers are able to retain their independence unviolated by other
countries, if the financial stability of the nation does not fail — for
this is the basis af all real progress in matters of public health even
niore than in other matters — and if Iceland continues in the democratic
Ways which she has followed so far and which seem to be so char-
acteristic of the Icelanders, so that mal-nutrition and the other ills at-
tendant on poverty may be avoided as well as the excesses of luxury,
then the Icelandic nation seems to possess everything which will
cnable it to secure a permanent position among the healthiest of
nations.