INTEREST IN PUBLIC HEALTH.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 254, 26 October 1932, Page 6

INTEREST IN PUBLIC HEALTH.

Collective preventive medicine, nationally organised, is, when we contemplate its extent <<nd ramifications to-day, surprisingly new (says "The Times." in a review of "A Century of Public Health in Britain," by Harley Williams). A century ago it can hardly be said to have existed. It was, indeed, in the eightecn-thirties that it had its birth; and in this excellent book Dr. Harley Williams tells the story of its development, of the experimental by-paths along which it has strayed, of its successes, and of the lessons to bo learned from its temporary failures. Indeed, the author says that his book might well have been called "The History of Public Health Prejudices"; for it is owing to ill-guided prejudices on the part of the public as much as to the inadequacy of the proposals of sanitarians and statesmen that the growth of effective preventive medicine has not been- even more rapid than it ' has. As Dr. Williams says: "From the psychological point of view the health statutes form a very sound guide to the degree of popular enlightenment at any particular period." Having briefly summarised the early history of the Poor Law, the author carries us on to the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 and to "Chadwick's magnificent failure"—a failure illus- ' trating a comment of "The Times" in 1858: "The ; English people declined to be bullied into health." "It was only in 1893, the year before his death, that Chadwick received, the official recognition of knighthood for his past services" —services which at the time of rendering brought him ' hostility and ostracism. Step by step the story : develops, telling of tentative efforts, both wise and mistaken, with occasional outstanding achievements, such as the great Public Health Act of 1875, the Local Government Act of 1888, the National Health Insurance Act and, lastly, the Important Local Government Act of three years ago. The emergence and progressive development of the School Medical Service, of the maternity end child welfare movement, of the anti-tuber-culosis campaign and of the collective control of venereal diseases are described efficiently and without waste of words, yet with so comprehensive and comprehending a sweep that the reader's attention and interest are held throughout. One thing that can but impress is the steady growth of intelligent, popular concern with all the problems of preventive medicine, collective and individual. The question is now no longer regarded as one only for statesmen and doctors; and there is an increasing demand by the new democracy for accurate and reliable information on which ordinary men and women can base sound judgment. A characteristic recognition of this newlyawakened interest is to be seen in the example which Dr. Williams quotes of the "practice of the medical officer of Marylebonc, who writes to the parents of all children of an age to be vaccinated a simple letter explaining the advantages of vaccination and intimating that the vaccination doctor will call." In this, country public health administration is very largely in the hands of popularly-elected laymen. Individuals so occupied, as well as all who are citizens interested in. the subject of oommunal hygiene, have in this book a most valuable and informative guide. Here they may see, as on a map, the dangerous rocks and; the quicksands which lie hidden near the true course; and they will learn, also, how intimately related is the cultivation of popular intelligence to hygiene, as to every other form of social and individual, progress