| Show Buying H Health Saturday Evening Post Poet Students have been urging for some time the consolidation of small anaU outworn out out- worn un units of government nt Into larger districts more mare adapted to meet modem modern conditions This Is especially applicable to health work and anyone who de despairs despairs de- de of his country should Inquire into the recent progress In coordinating health activities in rural sections Here is concrete evidence that we are learnIng learning learning learn learn- ing how to govern In 1911 there were no time full rural health de de- de the tho United States while on January i 1 1928 three hundred and thirty county health units were In to existence There is well well grounded grounded fear on onUle the Ule part of the citizen of being berg and overtaxed But DuNn Butin ln health work in any case not only greater eater efficiency 7 but actual dollars and cents economy results from a sensible coordination of effort I The The natural advantages which rural sections sections possess In matters of health are more than offset by the better health pr protection l Uon afforded the city dweller I For For years yean the th-e decline In the death rate has been greater among the urban than among the rural population States Public Uc Health Service says that In our rural communities there are a million minion p people t le incapacitated all the time by illness much of which is preventable about 70 per cent of the school schoolchildren schoolchildren children are handicapped by physical defects and more than 60 per cent of the people between forty and sixty are in serious need of physical repair Malaria Malaria Ma Ma- laria hookworm typhoid and dysentery are far more common in hi the country th than n In the city the first two being entirely rural Tuberculosis is surprisingly prevalent in the country Under modern conditions of tran trapp transportation and travel rural and urban health conditions are closely related The typhoid epidemic in one of the large cities of the North American continent nt a few years ago furnished as an official report says a dreadful example of or the relationship re relationship re- re of ry rural urban he health I But Dut rural districts are poor and heavily burdened County and 1 local medical practitioners are periodically aroused and pestered by campaigns in the Interest of some particular health problem Too many specialties in the way of health activities are wished upon Poor poor communities The general public Is la confused and the medical profession Irritated The need is for coordination for the pooling of resources to attack the whole complex and Interrelated problem problem pro pro- blem blew of health and disease Recognition of these facts is resulting in the county health unit with a single definite program of local state and Federal work Under the ther r operation of ot one such unit in a Western state all the cities dUes as well as the rural sections of the county have coordinated their health work in one movement movement move move- ment under one head and with one appropriation From 1922 to 1927 the typhoid and diphtheria death rate had dropped from and per to 29 each The infant and maternal death rates had fallen from and per 1000 living births to and 67 and the death rate for infants infanta under two years yeara from enteritis and similar complaints fell from to per population The economic saving from a reduced death rate naturally any ally exceeded the cost of the health work several times and such uch ac activity would would's s 's Ii have nave been less effective If It carried on by each separate local unit The The county t j Is naturally proud of Ute the officer in 11 charge but the citizens of the county should g give ve themselves credit for having the common sense nse to pool and centralize r their efforts It must not be supposed that official health agencies are to take tate the place of i It it the e practicing physician These agencies as pointed out by Dr W W. F F. Draper t assistant t surgeon general of ot the United States Public Health Service are concerned concerned cont con con- with things and ana conditions over which the individual has no control C j I they seek to create a favorable environment in which the Individual may mayI I carry cany out the instructions of his physician physician his his personal health adviser i f But Dut while official or public agencies are not Intended to take the place of j I the practicing physician the Individual would be about as as useful t I as a Central African witch doctor witch doctor if it there were no official agencies It is a trite but valuable saying that public health Is But Dut money alone will wiD not buy It Money Yoney will stop an epidemic of typhoid or b plague Careful official organization is requisite and this should be adapted t to modem conditions 1 |
