PAPERS PRESENTED AT GENERAL SESSIONS 35 



MENTAL HYGIENE AS A PROBLEM OF PUBLIC 



HEALTH 



Herman M. Adler. M. P.. Criminologist, Department 

 of Public Welfare. Chicago 



The accomplishments of medical science in controlling 

 infectious dis as g both by prevention and by cure a 1 

 well known to the general public that there can be little 

 doubt as to the main facts. In spil n of 



atively small but determined number of dissenters 

 the science of medicine has gone on in an uninterrupted 

 sequence of achievements. Typhoid fever, small 

 diphtheria, and tuberculosis have all yielded to the medi- 

 cal attack. Even in those conditions in which the eti- 



tment are still obscure 

 has been accomplished in prevention. The avei 



ncy of life ha- igthened in one generation 



from thirty-thr irs, and predictions 



I on reasonable assumpt 

 that the span of life will be further increased 

 or even the Biblical three score and ten years. 



It is natural that such a growing accumulation of 

 knowledge has produced a marked effect on the com- 

 munity of the general health problem. Public 

 Health has developed into one of the most important 

 agencies in the - -guarding of the community welfare. 

 ^:ene has made it possible for increasingly large 

 groups to enjoy the advantages of close association in 

 cities without the dangers to health which formerly were 

 an invariable accompaniment to concentration of popula- 

 tion. This ability t - -guard health has been felt also 

 on the famis and in industry. It has made possible the 

 management of large armies, the conquest of the tropics 

 and the arctics, the build:' the Panama Canal. In 

 addition to the prolongation of life and to the protection 

 'of citizens has been tl. - - made in the reduction 

 of infant mortality. 



Medicine has not yet reached the tinal triumph over 

 if the advances made in cancer, heart 

 - s, the difl s 1 the respiratory organs, menin- 

 gitis, syphilis, and tuberculosis, these lis - - -• ill exact 



