A national health policy / by Harry Roberts.

  • Harry Roberts
Date:
1923
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A national health policy / by Harry Roberts. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    23/136 (page 15)
    SO general where health matters are concerned, be overcome. This is more than ever important for a party like the Labour Party, which must, if it is not to belie its principles, carry public opinion with it. Indeed, it is not an exaggeration to say that the most urgent of all health reforms, without which all others will be of comparatively little avail, is the education of the public. Very little in this way is done in England ; much more is done in America. By systematic lec¬ tures, by leaflets, by posters, and by official paragraphs in the newspapers, the public should be kept informed of the latest additions to our knowledge, and of their significance and application. It is always difficult to carry out a public health policy, however urgent may be the necessity, among savages and native races. A large section of our own people present in this matter little less difficulty. And with us there is this added danger ; that prejudices, natural enough in the absence of information, are played upon by demagogues and demagogic newspapers to further their own ends. Against this sort of thing there is no weapon but know¬ ledge. Moreover, as I have said, no matter what pro¬ vision may be made by the State or by its subordinate administrative bodies in the way of environment and of collective regulation, the value of such provision can only be fully obtained if individual men and women intelligently and enthusiastically co-operate. And the more thoroughly we go into this health question, the more we come to see that the old clear-cut division between so-called preventive medicine and curative medicine—between the functions of the sani¬ tarian and the clinician—cannot be upheld. For pur¬ poses of convenience a certain rough-and-ready division may be made ; but it is essentially artificial, and must be qualified by infinite links and over-lappings. If we mean business, the whole medical profession must become one organised entity. Take the case of the doctor visiting a sick child in the slums, and diagnosing the cause of its illness as consisting in all sorts of un-