THE OUTLOOK OF PUBLIC HEALTH WORK 



live their entire lives without the benefits of health service. 

 There is no one to suggest to the women that they can 

 secure healthier babies by following some simple rules 

 during their pregnancies, no one to insure competent atten- 

 tion during confinement. It is nobody's business to en- 

 courage breast feeding and, later on, suitable dietaries for 

 the babies, or to attend to immunization against diphtheria 

 and smallpox during the first year of life. No clinic exists 

 where children may be taken for examinations and advice 

 and for the correction of physical defects. Nobody urges the 

 care of the teeth, and their neglect soon leads to serious 

 impairments of digestion or to worse ailments. And so on 

 up through the periods of infancy, the pre-school period, 

 the school ages, adolescence, and into adult life, there is 

 no person in these neglected areas whose duty it is to bring 

 the lessons and the benefits of well-established health 

 knowledge to the attention of the people, or to provide 

 facilities for its application of which they may avail 

 themselves. Of course, where the local doctors are not 

 already overworked, where they are well informed, and 

 are, in addition, altruistic even beyond the average for 

 their profession, some of these necessary things may get 

 done; but the point is that it is nobody's responsibility to 

 do them. The results of this neglect are evident to anyone 

 who wishes to investigate, even though he lacks a medical 

 training. The proportion of crippled, blinded, deaf, and 

 poorly nourished children is high. Much school attendance 

 is lost on account of sickness. Since the adults are the prod- 

 ucts of similar conditions, men and women stoop-should- 

 ered and old at thirty-five are commonly seen. Their teeth 

 are reduced to a few loose snags. Typhoid fever is apt to 

 be prevalent, and in some parts of the country hookworm 

 disease and malaria take their toll both of life and of 

 productivity. Tuberculosis finds good soil to work on, 

 and parents, since no one has told them better, subject 



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