RURAL HEALTH PHYSICAL 201 



prize will be awarded to that school giving the best cooperation 

 in the work; a county prize will be awarded for the best com- 

 position, and another prize for the best knowledge of the health 

 catechism. The inspector can handle one rural school a day. 

 It will take two or three days to handle some of the larger vil- 

 lage and town schools. In the first county to adopt this unit 

 there are fifty-seven schools which will require a program of 

 practically three months. The inspector will have very hard 

 work for five days in the week, like all school workers, but like 

 them will have Saturday and Sunday to rest. This unit of 

 health work couples medical inspection of school children with 

 the sanitary instructions of the entire community, young and 

 old alike the young through the catechism, compositions, and 

 lectures, and the old through the lectures, but most of all 

 through the help the children will demand of their parents in 

 learning the catechism, and in preparing the compositions. 



This plan of contract county health work greatly increases 

 the appropriation of the State Board of Health; an appropria- 

 tion from a county is. just as useful in doing health work as an 

 appropriation from the state. This plan has great adaptability, 

 and I might say extensibility in proportion to the ingenuity of the 

 operator; under it a unit of infant hygiene work may be de- 

 veloped; under it a unit of anti-malaria work may be carried 

 out; under it a unit of anti-pellagra work may be executed; 

 under it many other more or less independent county health 

 problems may be successfully attempted. 



Comparative Value of Methods. The whole-time county health 

 officer idea proposes a means an officer; the unit or contract 

 system of county health work proposes an end the execution 

 of the plans and specifications for a definite piece of work. 



The whole-time county health officer idea, if carried out by 

 the county authorities, is subject to local politics; if adminis- 

 tered under state supervision it is in conflict with the principle 

 of local self-government. The unit system of county health 

 work is not subject to local politics and does not conflict with 

 the principles of local self-government. 



The whole-time county health officer plan costs the county 

 from $3,000 to $4,000 a year, and is available to only a compara- 

 tively few counties; the unit system of work costs the county 



