THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 



379 



THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 



A NATIONAL DEPARTMENT OF 

 PUBLIC HEALTH 



The physicians of the country and 

 the American Medical Association have 

 long advocated the establishment of a 

 department of public health as part of 

 the national government, and they now 

 have the cooperation of an influential 

 committee of one hundred, which had 

 its origin at the Ithaca meeting of the 

 American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science. Professor Norton, of 

 Yale University, there read a paper on 

 the economic advisability of a national 

 department of health in which he 

 pointed out the waste due to prevent- 

 able death and disease. Apart from 

 the incalculable misery, the saving in 

 money that could be effected in this 

 country was placed at from two to 

 four billion dollars a year. Professor 

 Fisher, of Yale University, who was 

 chairman of the section of economic 

 and social science of the association, is 

 chairman of the committee of one hun- 

 dred, which includes many of those 

 most active in all good works, such as 

 Presidents Eliot, Hadley, Angell and 

 Gilman, Drs. Welch, Bryant and Biggs, 

 the surgeon generals of the army and 

 navy, Messrs. Felix Adler and Lyman 

 Abbott, and others of equal influence. 

 It may not be easy for such a commit- 

 tee to agree on a definite plan, but 

 their recommendations should carry 

 great weight with the president and 

 the congress. 



The first question appears to be as 

 to whether a national department of 

 health with a cabinet officer should be 

 advocated or whether only a bureau 

 should be recommended for the present. 

 It is a curious fact that our cabinet 

 is smaller and less democratic than 

 that of any other great nation. We 

 alone have no ministry of education. 



Certainly the fusion of the war and 

 navy departments with one secretary 

 only and the establishment of three 

 new departments and cabinet ministers 

 — one of science, one of education and 

 one of health — would more nearly rep- 

 resent what should be the proper func- 

 tions of government than our present 

 system. But tms is a question for the 

 future. A less radical reorganization, 

 and one w T ithin the range of possibility, 

 should sensible people unite to advo- 

 cate it, would be the transference of 

 pensions from the Department of the 

 Interior to the army and navy, where 

 they belong, leaving the Department of 

 the Interior free to become essentially 

 a department of science, education and 

 health, whose representative in the 

 cabinet should be a man such as Presi- 

 dent Eliot or Dr. Welch. Apart from 

 pensions and the land office (which lat- 

 ter might be transferred to the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture or of Commerce 

 and Labor), the Department of the 

 Interior now consists of the Bureau of 

 Education and of Indian Affairs, the 

 Patent Office and the Geological Sur- 

 vey. If bureaus of science, of pub- 

 lie health and of fine arts were added, 

 the Department of the Interior would 

 become a ' Cultusministerium.' It ap- 

 pears likely that the most that can be 

 accomplished by the committee of one 

 hundred and the American Medical As- 

 sociation at present would be the estab- 

 lishment of a Bureau of Health coor- 

 dinate with the Bureau of Education 

 under the Department of the Interior. 

 The function of these two bureaus for 

 the present would be mainly that of 

 coordination and the collection and dif- 

 fusion of information, but they would 

 be free to develop as rapidly as the 

 general sentiment of the country per- 

 mitted. 



