GENERAL PAPERS 75 
venting disease should be an essential part of our system of 
education and no individual should have completed his educa- 
tion without the knowledge of how communicable diseases are 
spread and prevented; the dangers of and the methods of 
avoiding industrial disease; how to care for an infant, and a 
practical understanding of sanitation and hygiene. A system 
of education that requires large sums of money to teach indi- 
viduals English and science and does not instruct them how to 
protect themselves from preventable death and illness fails to 
insure its investment and may be criticised as incomplete. 
Each county should have a full-time health officer and com- 
munity nurses to meet the needs of the population. Their du- 
ties should be threefold; the control of disease, the education 
of the public, and as expert consultants for the citizens of the 
county upon matters of hygiene and sanitation. 
With such a force it would be possible to make a sanitary 
survey of each industrial plant, place of amusement, summer 
resort and residence. Such a survey would reach a large 
number of persons who are not likely to hear public lectures or 
to read popular literature. A visit and a tactful conference of 
the health officer and property owner have not only a sanitary 
and educational value, but they create a sympathetic under- 
standing between the citizen and the sanitarian, a condition 
essential to the practical progress of sanitary science. 
Every large industrial plant should carefully supervise the 
physical condition of its employees, for the health of the work- 
man determines his daily efficiency and the period of his pro- 
ductivity. Periodic physical examination of all employees would 
detect disease in its incipiency; would contribute largely to 
community health, and would make it possible to adapt the 
work to the physical condition of the worker. There would be 
an economic gain to the employer by the reduction of the num- 
ber of accidents to workmen, material and machinery; in pro- 
tection against unjust claims for compensation; in the in- 
creased efficiency of the worker, and in the decreased loss of 
time from preventable sickness. 
The prevention of disease is the function of science and so- 
ciety. Science must provide the way; society must use the 
means and bear the cost. The acceptance by society of Jen- 
