229-79 PUBLIC HEALTH AND HYGIENE IN CONTRIBUTIONS BY EMINENT AUTHORITIES EDITED BY WILLIAM HALLOCK PARK, M.D. PROFESSOR OF BACTERIOLOGY AND HYGIENE, UNIVERSITY AND BELLEVUE HOSPITAL MEDICAL PREFACE. A REMARKABLE advance has taken place, in the past few years, in the appreciation of the people and of their officials in regard to the value of public health. This growing opinion that public health is to a large extent purchasable by effort and money, and that it is worth purchasing has stimulated health authorities to develop their opportunities and to assume greater responsibilities. The best medical colleges have felt the force of this public opinion and no longer confine their teaching almost wholly to subjects dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of disease, but give thorough courses in hygiene, and its practical application in preventive medicine. The technological schools are also providing similar courses to their students who are thinking of entering the field of public health work. The great advances in our knowledge concerning hygiene and the increasing scope of public health work have led to the creation of many subdivisions and the problems and practices connected with these have become so highly technical as to require public health workers to restrict their activities to special lines. The medical officer for some time has appreciated this. Wherever the community is large enough to afford it, he has obtained the service of specialists to administer and develop the different departments. Thus it has come about that the department of health of any progressive State or large city has under the administrative head a number of bureaus dealing with such subjects as child hygiene, industrial hygiene, mental hygiene, sanitary inspection, foods, communicable diseases, hospitals, vital statistics, public health education and laboratories. Each of these divisions is placed under some specialist who has demonstrated his fitness. The time has passed when any one person can possess the technical knowledge and personal experience required properly to direct and develop all or even several of these different branches of public health work. It is also true that few if any persons can discuss authoritatively more than one or two of these subjects. The report of the American Public Health Association on the control of communicable diseases was consulted in writing the chapter on that subject. 518999 The writers of this book, holding the above opinions, believed that there was need of a volume in which the most important phases of hygiene in relation to public health would be presented in a practical way by specialists actually devoting themselves to the subjects treated by them. The writers have kept in mind that the book is intended for public health officials, physicians and medical students, and each has therefore tried to make his section as practical as possible and to utilize to the full his own personal experience. For this reason it has been impractical in most instances to give credit for the original sources of information embodied in the articles. No attempt has been made in this volume to treat the subjects of public health law and administration as these do not fall within its scope. Other subjects more or less related to public health have been omitted because of the necessity of drawing the line somewhere in order not to increase too greatly the size of the book. The editor was assisted in the early development of the book by Dr. Caroline E. Rosenberg. She was called away to service in Europe and since then he has been helped by Dr. Edward H. Marsh who has also prepared the index. He wishes to express his appreciation of their help. NEW YORK, 1920 W. H. P. CONTRIBUTORS. JAMES P. ATKINSON, A.B., M.S. (PRINCETON), Chief Chemist to the Department of Health of the City of New York; formerly S. JOSEPHINE BAKER, M.D., D.P.H., Director of the Bureau of Child Hygiene, Department of Health, New York City; Lecturer on Child Hygiene at Teachers' College, Columbia University and New York University and Bellevue Hospital Medical College; Consultant in Child Hygiene, U. S. Public Health Service; Former President of the American Child Hygiene Association; Member of the American Medical Association; Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine. CHARLES WHITE BERRY, M.D., D.P.H., Lecturer on Military Hygiene in the New York University and Bellevue CHARLES F. BOLDUAN, M.D., Lecturer on Preventive Medicine and Hygiene in the College of Physicians JAMES T.-B. BOWLES, B.S. (UNIV. OF MICH.), Lecturer in Water Supply and Sewage Disposal at New York University, Department of Hygiene, Bellevue Hospital Medical College; formerly connected with the University of Wisconsin in the Study and Inspection of Water Supplies, Municipal Sewage Disposal Plants and Disposal of Creamery Waste; in charge of Water Supplies and Purification Plants, Canal Zone, Panama; Sanitary Expert with Expeditionary Forces, Vera Cruz, Mexico; Formerly Lieut.-Col., Sanitary Corps, U. S. Army; Advisor on Water Supplies and Sewage Disposal. LELAND E. COFER, M.D., Surgeon, U. S. Public Health Service; Health Officer of the Port of New York; |