PROFITABLE AND FRUITLESS LINES OF ENDEAVOR IN 

 PUBLIC HEALTH WORK. 1 



By Edwin 0. Jordan, 



Professor of Bacteriology , University of Chicago. 



It is in accord with the spirit of this congress to consider public 

 health questions either from the point of view of things already 

 accomplished by the application of the scientific method or from that 

 of things to be done. I have chosen to speak especially of ' ' the saving 

 of waste and increase of efficiency" still to be expected when public 

 health problems are approached in a scientific spirit. 



It is well recognized to-day by many experts that while some of the 

 ordinary activities of municipal health departments are of unquestion- 

 able value in conserving the health of a community, others are rela- 

 tively ineffective or possibly worthless. One well-known writer 2 has 

 thus expressed himself on this point : 



1 boldly assert that if every case of communicable disease were promptly reported to 

 the proper local board of health and as promptly placed under effective sanitary con- 

 trol and so kept until danger of infection had passed, all the other present-day activities 

 of boards of health, whether local, State, or national, with the exception of those 

 directed against certain causes of infant mortality and the possible further exception 

 of some food and drug inspection, might be dropped with no appreciable effect upon 

 the general health or mortality of any of our States or most of our cities. 



In all fairness it must be admitted that a part of the energy of 

 almost every municipal health department in this country is devoted 

 to combating imaginary dangers or applied to tasks that have only a 

 remote bearing on the public health. 



This condition, as a rule, is not due to ignorance on the part of 

 health officials, but to the pressure of public opinion. Such pressure 

 is often exerted directly through legal ordinances passed by unin- 

 formed legislative bodies, but sometimes also through agitation by 

 mistaken enthusiasts or through other channels of public opinion. 



i Paper presented before the Congress of Technology, Boston, Apr. 10, 1911, to commemorate the fiftieth 

 anniversary of the granting of the charter to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Printed in 

 Science, June 2, 1911. Reprinted by permission. 



2 M. N. Baker, chairman committee on municipal health and sanitation, National Municipal League. 



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