The public health movement.

  • American Academy of Political and Social Science
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The public health movement. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    ■] ■O^OPEEATiVt fim I umn, mm li 16 SEP 1925 !^ JVb..„ HEALTH NEEDS AND CIVIC A:eTiW==^^ By William H. Allen, Ph.D., Director Bureau of Municipal Research, New York City. Of $112,000,000 requested last year in 4400 appeals to one New York philanthropist, $1,075,000 was asked for various co- operative health purposes. Of this total, only $45,000, or less than one-half of one per cent., was asked for preventive or edu- cational health work. The rest was for hospitals, dispensaries, clinics, etc. Of $163,000,000 in public benefactions last year, $19,100,000 was for health purposes. Of this not one dollar was for teaching laymen or governinental officials how to use knowledge already possessed, while $6,800,000 was for finding facts not yet known about cancer, hookworm, etc., and $12,200,000 for hospitals and medical colleges. When John S. Kennedy's will provided for public benefac- tions of $32,000,000, not one dollar was given in a way that indicated an interest in preventive health work, or in what we speak of as the health movement. The only part of his gift of which he could have been certain that any fraction would be applied to preventive and educational health measures was the $750,000 for the New York School of Philanthropy, where in the treatment of social and civic subjects, considerations of private and public health are given emphasis. Among the world-famous gifts of Mr. Rockefeller and Mr. Carnegie, which together total nearly $350,000,000, not one dollar has been given specifically for furthering the administrative use of health knowledge already possessed, whether by experts or by the public, and less than $10,000,000 is known to have been given for hospitals and medical research. What does ii mean to the health movement that, while hospitals received last year in wills and in large gifts over $10,- 000,000, the National Committee of One Hundred could not raise $10,000 to show the need for a National Bureau of Health? Is it not really true, as might seem from the figures, that rich