Trends in employee health service : Margaret F. McKiever, editor.

  • United States. Public Health Service. Division of Occupational Health
Date:
1965]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Trends in employee health service : Margaret F. McKiever, editor. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    miners, shopkeepers, clerks, and professional and technical persons. It is an important part of the community-wide plan for health pro- motion of all age groups and of all elements in the community. It is a subdivision of adult health, with special interest in the employ- able and employed age groups, 20-65 years. Occupational health as it is defined indicates a basic interrelationship among industry, labor, medicine, public health and the community. Quoted from Confrey, Eugene A., ed.: Administration of Community Health Services. Chicago, International City Managers Association, 1961. Comparing the “cigar-box” first-aid stations of half a century ago with the superbly equipped and expertly administered departments of this latter day, one may wonder: “What miracle is this?” There has been none, unless to combine the highest of practical ideals with the hardest of hard work may be called a miracle. Modern occu- pational medicine is a specialty that brings together all specialties— physiology, pathology, bacteriology—of an environmental, psycho- logical and social nature. It has translated tools created by the other specialties into health conservation for masses of people in business and in industry as well as for individuals. Quoted from Selleck, Henry B., in collaboration with Whittaker, Alfred H.: Occupational Health in America. Detroit, Wayne University Press, 1962. The importance of a broad concept of occupational health, in view of emerging industrial health problems, was summed up very ade- quately and concisely several years ago by Henry Doyle, now Assist- ant Chief of the Division of Occupational Health, on the basis of his long experience in the field of occupational] health. He called atten- tion to the fact that the industry of the future, with its emphasis on automation, electronic and chemical operations and nuclear energy, may introduce numerous physiologic and psychologic health problems, some of which may have more far-reaching effects than those of the past. “Whereas in the past we were concerned primarily in fitting the environment to the man, in the future our big job is going to be to match the man to the machine. Known as human engineering, this is an area in which the private physician, as well as the industrial physician, should become increasingly involved.” After reviewing some of the industrial areas with possible emerg- ing occupational health problems and the possible influence of occu- pational factors on so-called nonoccupational disease, Mr. Doyle em- phasized that a major requisite for the successful operation of industrial health programs—no matter what form they take—is that the plant physician have the confidence of, and free exchange of medi- cal information with, hospitals, clinics, the local health department, and his fellow practitioners in the community. Only through the cooperation of the private physician and the industrial physician can
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