The past few years have witnessed an advance in the evolution of
medicine which has been radical and comprehensive.
It was only a decade ago that the efforts of centuries devoted to
empirical treatment of the individual found room for research into the
causes of disease; and it has only been within recent years that such
knowledge has been sufficiently comprehensive to justify its extensive
application in the practical field of disease suppression.
The attempt which Columbia University is making to establish a School
of Sanitary Science and Public Health is prompted by the realization of
the fact that most diseases are preventable with our present knowledge
of their causes; that the knowledge which we now possess in regard to
their causes is not properly and extensively enough applied for their
prevention; and that this knowledge is best transmitted to the people
by means of educational methods.
Probably the most recent advance in the doctrine of preventive medicine
is due to the fact that many diseases are recognized to have not only
medical, but social and moral causes as well; and that their prevention
is best accomplished by the enlistment of judicious co-operation of
effort in these various fields. For example, a large part of the
disease of the human race is directly traceable to the damaging effects
of alcohol and syphilis, yet these diseases cannot be eradicated until
the underlying social and moral factors are recognized and remedied.
It is not difficult to appreciate the wonderful results which are
capable of accomplishment, with our present scientific knowledge, by
the conjoined application of scientific and social with educational
methods, when we realize that smallpox could be wiped out by education
of the masses on the efficacy of vaccination. The fields of preventable
accidents, dangerous trades, child labor and improvement of working
conditions offer opportunities for the reduction of suffering which are
great almost beyond conception. Blindness could be diminished one-half
by the spread of a simple, well known doctrine; typhoid, cholera,
malaria and yellow fever depart as enlightenment on principles of
sanitary administration creep in, and tuberculosis has resolved itself
largely into a "social" disease.
The problem resolves itself distinctly and emphatically into one of
education; and it is to instruct the teachers of the people in methods
of health preservation,--be they officers of health, with the care of
thousands, or mothers with the care of one, in their keeping,--that
Columbia University is striving to put its school into operation.
Pending such a beginning, a series of university lectures on Sanitary
Science and Public Health by the most eminent authorities of the
country is being given to prepare the way for the next much desired
move,--a permanent, fully-endowed institution of instruction in the
principles of public health preservation and the prevention of disease.
Courses of a similar nature have been organized at Cornell, Wisconsin
and Illinois universities.
The subjects, to be discussed by experts, include water supply and
sewage disposal, health and death rates in cities, public health
problems of municipalities, state and nation, milk supply and infant
mortality, school hygiene, street cleaning, tenement house sanitation,
personal and industrial hygiene and diseases of animals transmissible
to man. The course, which was started on February 1 with a lecture by
Professor Sedgwick of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on The
Rise and Significance of the Public Health Movement, will be continued
until April 28. The lectures will be open to the public up to the
capacity of the hall.