BIOLOGY IN HUMAN AFFAIRS 



throughout the land. The measures themselves, however, 

 are found to be very similar in countries of comparable 

 geographic and cultural status. This latter fact is of course 

 traceable to the general adoption of scientific methods in 

 public health work. If based on tradition or mere specu- 

 lation, public measures would of course vary extensively 

 according to local influences. 



In common with other human activities, public health 

 work has undergone a progressively widening interpreta- 

 tion as to scope. Originally confined largely to dealing with 

 only the most devastating pestilences, it became applied 

 later to those diseases which we have always with us 

 and, for that reason, are prone to disregard, but which in 

 the aggregate are far more destructive than so-called 

 epidemics. The unusual, the exotic, the sensational, create 

 a public demand for action, which the insidious and com- 

 monplace do not. As long as disease was regarded as 

 largely a matter of filth, public health endeavor was 

 directed chiefly toward cleaning up visible accumulations 

 of refuse and rubbish. To this sort of activity the term 

 sanitation still clings. To a considerable portion of the 

 public this is still the beginning and end of public health 

 work. They call upon the health office to abate nuisances, 

 but do not seek or follow its advice on matters of greater 

 importance to their welfare. 



When bacteriology as applied to medicine began to 

 yield quantitative results, health students began to dis- 

 criminate regarding filth. The invisible typhoid bacillus 

 concealed in a sparklingly clear well water became vastly 

 more important than the pile of ashes in the back yard. 

 Distinctions were made as to whether nuisances were 

 actual, potential, or negligible health menaces. Economies 

 were thus eff^ected in action, or former duties were turned 

 over to other public agencies. The street cleaning depart- 

 ment relieved the health department and permitted the 



[246] 



