THE OUTLOOK OF PUBLIC HEALTH WORK 



Research in the past forms the basis of present-day prac- 

 tice. Present-day research is laying the groundwork of 

 future progress. It is, or should be, a part of the program 

 of every public health organization. Unfortunately, be- 

 cause of the inadequate financial support of many such 

 organizations, actual research comes in for what little 

 attention it can get after the imperative work has been 

 done. Some of the state and city health organizations, 

 however, have made notable contributions, through 

 research, to the armamentarium of the public health worker. 

 The Federal Government also, through the Public Health 

 Service which maintains a personnel of some three hundred 

 research employees, has contributed much valuable data. 

 In addition we must remember the notable achievements 

 of other branches of the government, of the universities, 

 and of voluntary organizations devoted to health research 

 or related activities. Moreover, as has been pointed out, new 

 facts in any branch of physical science may prove to have 

 immediate practical bearing on health work, so that such 

 work anywhere throughout the world must be counted as 

 a potential asset in health research. 



Public health research is divisible into two categories: 

 first, the fundamental sort, which seeks to discover and 

 formulate the natural laws which underlie a great many 

 phenomena relating to health subjects; and second, the 

 practical sort, which attempts to solve some immediate 

 and pressing difficulty. Both kinds are necessary. Enormous 

 advances along a wide front follow the first kind, of which 

 no better example can be cited than those which resulted 

 in Pasteur's generalization regarding microorganisms. 

 Those in the second category may be compared to the cap- 

 ture of a trench or a redoubt in military operations, but 

 they have the advantage of greater assurance of per- 

 manency and of being repeated by other workers at other 

 places. 



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