Transactions of the Conference on the future of public health in the United States and the education of sanitarians : held at Washington, D.C. March 14 and 15, 1922 under the auspices of the United States Public Health Service.
- Conference on the Future of Public Health in the United States and the Education of Sanitarians (1922 : Washington, D.C.)
- Date:
- 1922
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Transactions of the Conference on the future of public health in the United States and the education of sanitarians : held at Washington, D.C. March 14 and 15, 1922 under the auspices of the United States Public Health Service. Source: Wellcome Collection.
46/168 page 40
![I take it that public health is interested in physica] education because of its health implications. Physical education has health values and possible contributions to health. But public health ought to see in physical education something more than the physiological results of exercise. Physical education bears the same relation to public health that it does to education in general. Public health is concerned with certain definite concrete responsibilities even as edu- cation is, but both are or should be vitally interested in the larger aspects of life in which the finest and best types of citizenship are the larger goals. It is difficult to conceive of public health as interested only in disease prevention. ‘The tremendous success of the efforts to control infant mortality and to decrease the toll of communicable disease is a handi- cap when the losses of vitality and early adult deaths are considered. The increase in the cardio-vascular-renal diseases, where their etiology is not parasitic or bacterial, indicates the necessity for view- ing the problem as one of adjustment to the conditions of modern civilization, as one of high personal standards of living, as one essen- tially of education, hygiene, and physical education in which know]l- edges, habits, attitudes, appreciations, and ideals are to be our chief reliance. : It would appear, therefore, that public health may well consider how it can best serve in shaping a modern and dynamic view of health. Such a view must, so it seems, not hold physical education as a sup- plementary means to be employed as a corrective of life but as a fundamental scheme of physical activities for all, directed in accord- ance with the biologic, social, and human needs of boys and girls and men and women everywhere. It would appear also that the public-health movement must view health as something more than freedom from disease. Health as freedom from disease is a standard of mediocrity. Health ought to be given a social interpretation. In fact all the special and technical procedures aiming at the welfare of the group need a social interpre- tation. With agreement on this point there will come new emphasis in our professional courses on health and hygiene. ‘Technical sanitary instruction and disease control must be presented, of course, but hygiene as taught in our medical schools will be changed.. Sterile sanitation and toothbrush hygiene will be interpreted in the light of national and individual needs, national and individual responsibilities. The problem of proper emphasis is largely a problem of instruction and instructors. The traditional gymnast with his training all in his heels and none in his head has usually failed to sense the problem. The need for adequately trained leaders of physical education is very great. These leaders must know education, and just because most](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b32185820_0046.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
