THE DISEASE AND THE REMEDY 447 



social progress, and for the attainment of which he is largely to be 

 held accountable. 



It is the duty of the state, on the other hand, to furnish as the 

 second factor the best possible environment for the cultivation of those 

 attributes, which will secure to him, his neighbor and posterity the 

 largest measure of ' life, liberty and happiness.' 



Obviously, then, the best interests of both the state and the in- 

 dividual are mutual, and the benefits derived by each from the faithful 

 performance of duty are reciprocal. The individual and the state 

 can not be divorced. 



Every human life, however, is not an asset. All lives at some 

 period are not only non-productive, but are the source of considerable 

 expense to the state or relatives and friends, and each unproductive 

 life becomes a proportional burden upon all productive society. 



The chief cause of unproductiveness in the adult is inefficiency, 

 and the chief cause of inefficiency having been found by competent 

 investigators to be disease, we must feel that health and disease have 

 too long been considered from the narrow standpoint of an individual 

 blessing or calamity. As our commercial and intellectual activities in- 

 crease, our socio-medical problems have been multiplied until it has 

 become imperative that we view them in their economic aspects and 

 deal with them accordingly. 



To the ultra-conservative or the uninformed it may appear that 

 the elevation of preventive medicine, in its largest and most compre- 

 hensive sense, to the importance of a great economic issue, is a step 

 unpractical if not unnecessary. 



If, however, under the conditions which now prevail, we add to 

 the cost of human suffering, mental and physical, the financial cost 

 of disease to the individual and to the state in the maintenance of 

 hospitals, asylums, jails, permanent and periodic quarantine regula- 

 tions with their accompanying commercial disturbance, and then 

 subtract from this total the cost of those diseases which, in the present 

 light of science, are known to be preventable, provided adequate 

 prophylactic measures can be enforced, we shall readily discover in the 

 remainder the warrant for presenting this subject in the dignity of 

 one of national economic consequence. 



If adequate relief is to be rendered, it is necessary that ultimate, 

 not proximate, causes and remedies be sought. We shall, therefore, 

 undertake to view in a full yet not extravagant light the terms and 

 factors with which we must deal. 



Few people realize the value and importance of a human life. If 

 its value were better understood, a very different conception would 

 prevail regarding the necessity of certain measures, which thoughtful 

 and far-seeing persons are endeavoring to call to popular attention. 



