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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIV. No. 1391 



sis of social maladjustment, according to 

 Southard (1), should first of all be on the 

 basis of the individual rather than the family 

 and should proceed by a " process of orderly 

 exclusion," weighing in turn the significance 

 of disease, vice, delinquency, ignorance and 

 poverty. These, then, are the provinces of the 

 kingdom of evil. 



We should conceive the public health pro- 

 gram as embracing and extending this field of 

 social service. I find it easy to explain how 

 public health embraces this inclusive scheme 

 of Southard's, but more difficult to state just 

 how it extends it, other than in the way of 

 specialized correction. Social work can 

 scarcely be confined to simple detection of evil, 

 leaving its correction and prevention to a more 

 inclusive public health. Social work may 

 then be a mere synonym for public health but 

 of course the social worker as now conceived 

 would be only one of the cogs in the machine. 



To re-define, it is the function of public 

 health to spy out and remedy the " ills that 

 flesh is heir to," to deal with the individual 

 and collective problems of disease, ignorance, 

 vice, crime and poverty. It is evident we have 

 here the whole tissue of human altruism, and 

 have far outstripped the meaning of public 

 health in common speech. What then are the 

 discrepancies between the term " public 

 health" as currently employed and the larger 

 definition which, with possible prevision, I 

 have here given. 



Let us here correlate very briefly recent in- 

 formation as to the scope of public health. 

 There exist iu this country several well-estab- 

 lished curricula, schools, or institutes of pub- 

 lic health. What are the vocational fields for 

 which they train their students? In what do 

 their courses of training consist? 



There are several statements by experts on 

 the careers that are open to properly qualified 

 students in public health work. Viacent (2), 

 Winslow (3) and Ferrell (4) have all expressed 

 themselves on this matter and with con- 

 siderable unanimity. We may construct 

 from their articles a composite picture of the 

 public health field as they conceive it, as 

 viewed from the aspect of its opportunities. 



One of the most interesting aspects of our 

 field is that it offers opportunities of useful- 

 ness to individuals of several different degrees 

 of intellectual training. Thus we find that a 

 class "A" which we may designate as " skilled 

 workers " is required : clerks, stenographers, 

 accountants and laboratory technicians. These 

 individuals after an ordinary high-school edu- 

 cation are trained through apprenticeship. 



Class B includes the " professional work- 

 ers." These individuals are the specialists and 

 their assistants, with collegiate and usually 

 graduate training and comprise several groups : 



1. Administrators : directors of public health 

 schools, public health laboratories, bureaus 

 and the like. 



2. Laboratory workers: statisticians, bac- 

 teriologists, zoologists with various subgroups, 

 immunologists, chemists and physiologists. 



3. Field workers : public health nurses, sani- 

 tary engineers, epidemiologists, physicians, 

 particularly school health officers, and social 

 workers. 



Although there is rather general agreement 

 concerning most of these occupations and pro- 

 fessions that together compose " public health " 

 as now understood, it is evident that new 

 groups are being added, that there are as yet 

 " un tilled fields," as Winslow has expressed it. 



If vocational fields as ample as these exist, 

 if tillers of these fields are in demand it is 

 evident that they must be trained in other 

 than the haphazard way that was necessary 

 with the pioneers. Hence the " school of 

 public health " the present conception of which 

 now occupies us. A survey of the courses re- 

 quired and offered in four of the leading 

 schools of public health in this country. 

 Harvard- Technology, Tale, Pennsylvania and 

 Johns Hopkins, shows certain accepted stan- 

 dards and suggests the lines of further ad- 

 vance that are contemplated. We shall not 

 here concern ourselves with prerequisites and 

 degrees granted but consider only what may be 

 regarded as the fullest training offered. 



It is evident that public health training for 

 other than medical graduates requires prac- 

 tically the first two years as given in first 

 class medical schools, that is, complete courses 



