238 BIOLOGY OF DEATH 



gation, and not through the complacent acceptance of the 

 propagandist's assurance that "if what knowledge we 

 now have is applied, all will be well."* 



Many others have, of course, perceived that, in the 

 natural history of disease, mortality from particular 

 causes may decline over long periods of time without any 

 relation to what health departments have done, or tried 

 to do about it. For example. Given has recently pointed 

 out that there is no evidence that anything that man has 

 done has affected, in either one way or the other, the 

 decline in the mortality of tuberculosis, which has been 

 continuous for nearly three-quarters of a century. 

 Pearson has discussed the same point. 



There is much in our public health work that is worthy 

 of the highest praise. When based upon a sound founda- 

 tion of ascertained fact it may, and does, proceed with a 

 step as firm and inexorable as that of Fate itself, to the 

 wiping out of preventable mortality. Two recent ex- 

 amples may be cited here, by way of specific illustration 

 of what real and reasonably complete scientific knowledge 

 can accomplish in public health work. Both examples 

 are taken from the work of the International Health 

 Board of the Rockefeller Foundation, with the permission 

 of its director, Mr. Wickliffe Rose. 



The first concerns malaria. The life cycle of the 

 malaria parasite is definitely known, and furnished a 



* One can but wonder if the many scientific men, who permit, and to 

 some extent approve, such assertions, have ever thought of the menace to 

 the continued support of research in science in general which inheres in 

 this attitude of mind. The support of research comes finally back always 

 to society in general — to the "average citizen" in short. Is it the part 

 of wisdom to leave his education as to the meaning and significance of 

 science for his happiness and well-being, so entirely in the hands of the 

 propagandist as we now do? Has anti-vivisection taught no lesson? 



