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The Nation's health
PUBLIC
HEALTH THE JOURNAL OF
THE N o . 11.
SOCIETY
OF
MEDICAL
OF
HEALTH
Vol. L I I .
AUGUST,
Subscription 81s. 6d. per annum, post free, in advance. Single copies 2s. 6d. post free. "Public Health" is the Official Organ of the Society of Medical Officers of Health and a suitable medium for the advertisement of official appointments vacant in the health service. Space is also available for a certain number of approved commercial advertisements. Application shouM be made to the Executive Secretary of the Society, at Tavistock House South, Tavistock Square, W.C.1. Telephone : Euston 3923. Telegrams: Epidauros, Westcent.
Contents Editorial
Pac~ 317
T h e Nation's ttealth . . . . . . . . . . . . Abortion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . T h e Health Congress at Scarborough . . . . . . Maternal and Child Welfare ......... T h e Tuberculosis Conference . . . . . . . . . Medical Protection . . . . . . . . . . . .
318 319 32o 323 324
Special Articles Organisation of a School Medical Service. By J. R. Mitchell, M.C., M.B., D.P.H. . . . . . . T h e Problem of the Disposal of the Dead after Air Raids. By A. B. Williamson, M.A., M.D., D.P.H .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
T h e Premature Baby, M.D.,
OFFICERS
D.P.H.,
M.M.S.A.,
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
By V. Mary Crosse, D.R.C.O.G.
.. . . . .
325 329 332
News and Summaries Recent A p p o i n t m e n t s in the Public Health Service Refresher Courses, 1939-40 ......... Reorientation of Public Health Services ... Ministry of Health Publications ......
328 334 335 34t
Correspondence Inspection of U n s o u n d Food and Meat (W. B. Jepson) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Branch and Group Meetings . . . . . . . . .
334 338
Book Reviews T h e Basic Mechanics of H u m a n Vision Essentials of Fevers . . . . . . . . . . . . Principles of Medical Statistics . . . . . . . . . Aids to Public Health
. . . . . . . . . . . .
...
340 340 340 340
1939
Editorial The Nation's Health Few countries are favoured with such comprehensive annual reviews of the state of the health of the people" as ours. From the reports of the Ministry of Health, the Health Department for Scotland, the Chie£ Medical Officer of the Ministry and the Board of Education and the RegistrarGeneral, we can gather not only what is happening from year to year, but also gain a better sense of perspective from the retrospects which each of these volumes includes from time to time. Without derogation of any of his predecessors or colleagues or successors, it may be said that Sir George Newman introduced a new literary and philosophic atmosphere into the official report and put new life into the dry bones of the blue book. With singular skill he popularised without cheapening the idea of national health. To read his annual reports was both a pleasure and a stimulus. We welcome, therefore, an addition to the valuable books he has contributed to the literature of medicine and public health,* especially since it deals largely with the growth to its present form and size of the service in which we are engaged. Those who are familiar with Sir George's former writings will expect, and they will find, evidences of his extensive research into the history of preventive and curative medicine throughout the ages. Without overlooking the immense part taken by enlightened laymen and the instructed cooperation of the people generally in the evolution of the health services and in health consciousness, he has always stressed that advance in medical science and practice is the keystone of the structure of health. In this book chapters on the governance of English medicine and the new spirit in English medical education reflect the influence of his long years of service on the General Medical Council, and of his mind on the recent recommendations and rules of that body in relation to medical education and post-graduate training in public health. Needless to say he is illuminating o,, T h e Building of a Nation's Health." Sir George N e w m a n , G.B.E., K.C.n., M.V., r.a.e.P. L o n d o n : Macmillan & Co., Ltd, 1939. Price 21s. net.
317
PUBLIC HEALTH
AUGUST
on the growth of local and central governing is fully annoted with references and information responsibility for the public health, and his official it would be hard to find elsewhere. association with the inauguration and development of the personal health services of modern Abortion times inevitably leads him to devote much space The Report of the Inter-Departmental Comto the basic ideas underlying this comparatively mittee on Abortion* is an important document to new movement and the evidences of benefit public health departments, since it touches on derived from it. many subjects with which they are directly or Readers may turn with special interest to the indirectly concerned and recommends action in passages in which Sir George Newman, now un- which they are to be instrumental. The main trammelled by the chains of office, deals with recommendations are that the law should be so medical and other experts in central government amended as to make therapeutic abortion by service.. He shows how a long succession of medical practitioners permissible for the purpose medical merl in the civil service were subordinated of preventing serious impairment of health as well to lay control, sometimes in humiliating fashion, as danger to life, that consultation with another and with a crippling effect on their activities for practitioner should be obligatory before induction the national welfare ; and how the medical depart- of abortion, and that the operation should be ment was given its due status for the first time jointly notified by both practitioners to the when the Ministry of Health was constituted in M.O.H. of the Local Supervising Authority; that 1919. The impression left is that Sir George is notifications should be confidential but the police satisfied with the present state of affairs. We should have access to them; that medical pracwonder. Again, those who are impatient with titioners should more consistently urge patients to the obvious deficiencies of the existing health consent to the reporting of the activities of profesorganisation, and those who would seek a path into sional abortionists to the police, that the latter the future, will read with great interest his final should have power to search suspected premises chapter "Whence and Whither ?" He believes on a magistrate's warrant and that coroners should in our English genius for making a good quilt of be pressed by the Home Office to investigate atchwork and prefers gradualness to revolution. suspected deaths from abortion with the utmost e very wisely reminds us that government in vigilance; that it should be a criminal offence to health, as in other spheres, must be expedient, take, administer or supply " a n y substance whatthat what might be excellent in itself under ever" with the object of procuring abortion, that planned circumstances, may be bad in practice if the Home Secretary in consultation with the these circumstances cannot be changed. He Poisons Board should endeavour to put more shows how an almost infinite variety of factors stringent control on the sale of certain drugs may have contributed to the demonstrably better commonly used as abortifacients, that advertiSehealth of our people. " T h e great operative factors ment of "' female pills" should be suppressed, and of applied science, of communal consciousness and doctors, midwives, health visitors and other social of social growth and evolution must, as Ruskin workers should constantly warn women of the said of all consummate art, be given t i m e and be dangers and general inefficacy of abortifacient guided by experience. 'Progress by gradualness' drugs ; that the sale of sticks of slippery elm bark is not an evil, but sound common sense. The should be prohibited; and that advice on birth sudden imposition by statecraft or artifice of what control should be more systematically provided by may be called ' a Soviet system of national health' local authorities, the Ministry's limitation of may be good or bad, but it has not yet proved approval to cases of married women requiring more efficacious than slow development by social such advice on health grounds not to be removed evolution." Again he returns to the place of but also not to be interpreted too narrowly or medicine--" This book has failed in its record if rigidly. it has not made plain that national health--in Of these proposals that which would throw an every country in the world, everywhere, and all entirely new responsibility on the medical officer the time---depends first upon knowledge of the of health is the receipt and handling of notificascience and art of Medicine, discovered, tested, tions of therapeutic abortion. It is suggested that verified, proved, and then upon its social applica- the form of notification should give particulars tion by the medical practitioner, by the State, and as to the medical circumstances giving rise to the by the people of that State." If he must prescribe need for the removal of the products of conce.pa course for the future, he would have us concen- tion, and an explanation of any urgency or crlsls trate on immunisation, adequate nutrition and which may have made consultation before the physical education. ~H.M. StationeryOffice, 1939. Price2s. 6d. Needless to say, this book, like all Sir George's, ;318
HEALTH THE JOURNAL OF
THE N o . 11.
SOCIETY
OF
MEDICAL
OF
HEALTH
Vol. L I I .
AUGUST,
Subscription 81s. 6d. per annum, post free, in advance. Single copies 2s. 6d. post free. "Public Health" is the Official Organ of the Society of Medical Officers of Health and a suitable medium for the advertisement of official appointments vacant in the health service. Space is also available for a certain number of approved commercial advertisements. Application shouM be made to the Executive Secretary of the Society, at Tavistock House South, Tavistock Square, W.C.1. Telephone : Euston 3923. Telegrams: Epidauros, Westcent.
Contents Editorial
Pac~ 317
T h e Nation's ttealth . . . . . . . . . . . . Abortion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . T h e Health Congress at Scarborough . . . . . . Maternal and Child Welfare ......... T h e Tuberculosis Conference . . . . . . . . . Medical Protection . . . . . . . . . . . .
318 319 32o 323 324
Special Articles Organisation of a School Medical Service. By J. R. Mitchell, M.C., M.B., D.P.H. . . . . . . T h e Problem of the Disposal of the Dead after Air Raids. By A. B. Williamson, M.A., M.D., D.P.H .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
T h e Premature Baby, M.D.,
OFFICERS
D.P.H.,
M.M.S.A.,
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
By V. Mary Crosse, D.R.C.O.G.
.. . . . .
325 329 332
News and Summaries Recent A p p o i n t m e n t s in the Public Health Service Refresher Courses, 1939-40 ......... Reorientation of Public Health Services ... Ministry of Health Publications ......
328 334 335 34t
Correspondence Inspection of U n s o u n d Food and Meat (W. B. Jepson) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Branch and Group Meetings . . . . . . . . .
334 338
Book Reviews T h e Basic Mechanics of H u m a n Vision Essentials of Fevers . . . . . . . . . . . . Principles of Medical Statistics . . . . . . . . . Aids to Public Health
. . . . . . . . . . . .
...
340 340 340 340
1939
Editorial The Nation's Health Few countries are favoured with such comprehensive annual reviews of the state of the health of the people" as ours. From the reports of the Ministry of Health, the Health Department for Scotland, the Chie£ Medical Officer of the Ministry and the Board of Education and the RegistrarGeneral, we can gather not only what is happening from year to year, but also gain a better sense of perspective from the retrospects which each of these volumes includes from time to time. Without derogation of any of his predecessors or colleagues or successors, it may be said that Sir George Newman introduced a new literary and philosophic atmosphere into the official report and put new life into the dry bones of the blue book. With singular skill he popularised without cheapening the idea of national health. To read his annual reports was both a pleasure and a stimulus. We welcome, therefore, an addition to the valuable books he has contributed to the literature of medicine and public health,* especially since it deals largely with the growth to its present form and size of the service in which we are engaged. Those who are familiar with Sir George's former writings will expect, and they will find, evidences of his extensive research into the history of preventive and curative medicine throughout the ages. Without overlooking the immense part taken by enlightened laymen and the instructed cooperation of the people generally in the evolution of the health services and in health consciousness, he has always stressed that advance in medical science and practice is the keystone of the structure of health. In this book chapters on the governance of English medicine and the new spirit in English medical education reflect the influence of his long years of service on the General Medical Council, and of his mind on the recent recommendations and rules of that body in relation to medical education and post-graduate training in public health. Needless to say he is illuminating o,, T h e Building of a Nation's Health." Sir George N e w m a n , G.B.E., K.C.n., M.V., r.a.e.P. L o n d o n : Macmillan & Co., Ltd, 1939. Price 21s. net.
317
PUBLIC HEALTH
AUGUST
on the growth of local and central governing is fully annoted with references and information responsibility for the public health, and his official it would be hard to find elsewhere. association with the inauguration and development of the personal health services of modern Abortion times inevitably leads him to devote much space The Report of the Inter-Departmental Comto the basic ideas underlying this comparatively mittee on Abortion* is an important document to new movement and the evidences of benefit public health departments, since it touches on derived from it. many subjects with which they are directly or Readers may turn with special interest to the indirectly concerned and recommends action in passages in which Sir George Newman, now un- which they are to be instrumental. The main trammelled by the chains of office, deals with recommendations are that the law should be so medical and other experts in central government amended as to make therapeutic abortion by service.. He shows how a long succession of medical practitioners permissible for the purpose medical merl in the civil service were subordinated of preventing serious impairment of health as well to lay control, sometimes in humiliating fashion, as danger to life, that consultation with another and with a crippling effect on their activities for practitioner should be obligatory before induction the national welfare ; and how the medical depart- of abortion, and that the operation should be ment was given its due status for the first time jointly notified by both practitioners to the when the Ministry of Health was constituted in M.O.H. of the Local Supervising Authority; that 1919. The impression left is that Sir George is notifications should be confidential but the police satisfied with the present state of affairs. We should have access to them; that medical pracwonder. Again, those who are impatient with titioners should more consistently urge patients to the obvious deficiencies of the existing health consent to the reporting of the activities of profesorganisation, and those who would seek a path into sional abortionists to the police, that the latter the future, will read with great interest his final should have power to search suspected premises chapter "Whence and Whither ?" He believes on a magistrate's warrant and that coroners should in our English genius for making a good quilt of be pressed by the Home Office to investigate atchwork and prefers gradualness to revolution. suspected deaths from abortion with the utmost e very wisely reminds us that government in vigilance; that it should be a criminal offence to health, as in other spheres, must be expedient, take, administer or supply " a n y substance whatthat what might be excellent in itself under ever" with the object of procuring abortion, that planned circumstances, may be bad in practice if the Home Secretary in consultation with the these circumstances cannot be changed. He Poisons Board should endeavour to put more shows how an almost infinite variety of factors stringent control on the sale of certain drugs may have contributed to the demonstrably better commonly used as abortifacients, that advertiSehealth of our people. " T h e great operative factors ment of "' female pills" should be suppressed, and of applied science, of communal consciousness and doctors, midwives, health visitors and other social of social growth and evolution must, as Ruskin workers should constantly warn women of the said of all consummate art, be given t i m e and be dangers and general inefficacy of abortifacient guided by experience. 'Progress by gradualness' drugs ; that the sale of sticks of slippery elm bark is not an evil, but sound common sense. The should be prohibited; and that advice on birth sudden imposition by statecraft or artifice of what control should be more systematically provided by may be called ' a Soviet system of national health' local authorities, the Ministry's limitation of may be good or bad, but it has not yet proved approval to cases of married women requiring more efficacious than slow development by social such advice on health grounds not to be removed evolution." Again he returns to the place of but also not to be interpreted too narrowly or medicine--" This book has failed in its record if rigidly. it has not made plain that national health--in Of these proposals that which would throw an every country in the world, everywhere, and all entirely new responsibility on the medical officer the time---depends first upon knowledge of the of health is the receipt and handling of notificascience and art of Medicine, discovered, tested, tions of therapeutic abortion. It is suggested that verified, proved, and then upon its social applica- the form of notification should give particulars tion by the medical practitioner, by the State, and as to the medical circumstances giving rise to the by the people of that State." If he must prescribe need for the removal of the products of conce.pa course for the future, he would have us concen- tion, and an explanation of any urgency or crlsls trate on immunisation, adequate nutrition and which may have made consultation before the physical education. ~H.M. StationeryOffice, 1939. Price2s. 6d. Needless to say, this book, like all Sir George's, ;318