THE OUTLOOK OF PUBLIC HEALTH WORK 



here between medical and public health activities than 

 necessity demands. The doctor's field has been predominat- 

 ingly treatment — the health worker's, prevention. 



This is not the place to discuss the advantages of the 

 two systems further than to remark that the first, using the 

 practitioner as the health agent, appears to work well in 

 the small, compact, homogeneous countries where it is 

 found, while the second system accomplishes comparably 

 good results under the conditions which prevail widely in 

 this country. 



Under our system it is possible for the practitioner to 

 fulfill his obligations without any extensive knowledge 

 of, or experience in, public health work. On the contrary, 

 it is not possible for a responsible health officer to perform 

 his official duties without a thorough grounding in medical 

 science, or at least the assistance of those of his staff who 

 have had such training. 



In summing up this section it may be said that public 

 health work, at least of an official character, is definitely 

 committed to a policy of practice based upon information 

 derived from the basic physical sciences: biology, chem- 

 istry, and physics. Without this information it would, 

 in all probability, be somewhat worse than useless. While 

 a part of the data comes directly from the academic sources 

 of scientific information, a large bulk is derived from those 

 adaptations which are known as the medical sciences, 

 and still another portion is the result of researches carried 

 out by health agencies themselves. 



It is the intent here to deal with public health agencies 

 only to the extent that is necessary in order to afford an 

 understanding of the outlook of public health work. The 

 observations will be confined to conditions in the United 

 States. 



First of all, the agencies may be separated into two 

 classes, the official and the voluntary. Official health 



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