912 



SCIENCE. 



[X. S. Vol. XXI. Xo. 54G. 



closing, as to its relation to public health 

 science, into three periods, the first, from 

 1776 to 1832, a period of reliance upon 

 authority and upon drugs; the second, 

 from 1832 to 1869, a period of true scien- 

 tific observation ; the third, from 1869 on- 

 wards, an epoch in which the medical pro- 

 fession is aided by the laity and state 

 hygiene is inaugurated. Dr. Bowditch has 

 much to say of the desirability of a wider 

 cooperation of the laity in state hygiene 

 and remarks: 'In all that tends to the 

 promotion of state hygiene hereafter th6 

 laity will naturally and cordially cooperate 

 with the [medical] profession.' The his- 

 tory of public health science shows Dr. 

 Bowditch 's prediction to have been well 

 grounded. The names of John Howard 

 and Captain Cook in the eighteenth cen- 

 tury, and of Edwin Chadwick, John Simon 

 and Louis Pasteur (not to mention a host 

 of lesser workers) in the nineteenth cen- 

 tury, show conclusively that public health 

 science has been, even from the start, by 

 no means confined to medical men. We 

 may go further and say that even when 

 forwarded by medical men these have sel- 

 dom been busy practitioners. Sir George 

 Baker and Jenner were, it is true, of this 

 class, but not Pettenkofer or Koch or Ross 

 or Billings or Reed.* 



Reflections of this sort naturally lead to 

 a consideration of the reciprocal relations 

 of public health science and the science of 

 education. I do not need to dwell upon 

 the beneficial elfeets of public health sci- 

 ence upon the hygiene and sanitation of 

 school children or school hoiises. These 

 benefits have long been emphasized by sani- 

 tarians and sanitary reformers, and are 

 sufficiently obvioiis. The reverse of the 

 picture, however, is by no means so well 



* " During the course of an epidemic physicians 

 are too busy to make observations which require 

 much time or care, or to make more than brief 

 notes."— J. S. Billings. 



understood. Unless one is familiar with 

 the facts, it is difficult to conceive how little 

 impression the splendid progress which the 

 last fifty years have witnessed in public 

 health science has as yet made upon the 

 curriculum of education. From top to 

 bottom and from bottom to top the schools, 

 whether primary, grammar, high, normal, 

 technical, medical or any other class, are 

 recreant, inasmuch as they neglect almost 

 wholly any adequate training of their pu- 

 pils in the principles of public health sci- 

 ence, which are confessedly of such pro- 

 found importance to mankind. There is, 

 to be sure, just now a popular wave of en- 

 thusiasm touching the extermination of 

 tuberculosis, but in the United States, at 

 any rate, both schools and universities are 

 singularly negligent of their most element- 

 ary duties in this direction. Yet if what 

 I have said before is true, if the laity are 

 to participate from this time forward with 

 medical men in sanitary and hygienic 

 legislation and administration, if engineers 

 and medical men in particular are to serve 

 upon boards of health or in other executive 

 positions connected with public works, then, 

 surely, it is the duty of the science of edu- 

 cation to lend its powerful aid and not to 

 fail to save the lives and health of the 

 people as these can be saved to-day, but 

 always to promote that public health and 

 that large measure of consequent happiness 

 which can probably be more easily and 

 quickly accomplished in this way than in 

 any other. 



As to the function of medical education 

 and engineering education in respect to the 

 dissemination of public health science. I 

 shall say only a word. In spite of the 

 reiteration by medical men of their belief 

 in the importance of hygiene and pre- 

 ventive medicine as a part of the equip- 

 ment of the medical profession, it is a 

 significant fact that in America even the 



