BIOLOGY IN HUMAN AFFAIRS 



tion, especially among the lower age groups. Again, with 

 the development of new industrial processes and the dis- 

 tribution all over the country of new articles and prepa- 

 rations, it was realized that a real health menace existed in 

 the possible poisoning, both among the industrial groups 

 and the general public, of the makers and users of some of 

 these unfamiliar wares. Growing interest has also been 

 manifested in mental disease as a cause of suffering and 

 incapacitation, and the realization is at hand that some- 

 thing may and should be done to prevent or control this 

 condition. Recently cancer has enlisted the consider- 

 ation of public health officials as a condition deserv- 

 ing of, and to a degree amenable to, public health 

 activities. 



The student of public health is continually impressed 

 with the immense significance of social and economic con- 

 ditions to health, and health workers are increasingly 

 employing an approach along lines suggested by this 

 consideration. 



With the foregoing summary by way of orientation, it is 

 now necessary, in portraying the outlook of public health 

 work, to examine in some detail various factors to which a 

 brief allusion has been made. 



Official public health work throughout the world is 

 definitely committed to the acceptance and employment of 

 the findings of science. This is not to say that there already 

 exists a good scientific reason for every activity which is 

 now carried out. There are still many gaps in knowledge 

 which leave to the public health official the choice between 

 doing nothing at all or doing what seems to him the most 

 sensible thing, although he may not be able to quote solid 

 scientific reasons for it. As soon as it becomes evident that 

 these methods should be abandoned or replaced, or that 

 they can be refined and improved, he is not, as a rule, 

 slow to take appropriate action. For it must be remembered 



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