Disease prevention

“ We have learned to appreciate the true value of hygienic principles in the prevention of diseases of the epidemic type; and the medical profession, throwing aside all selfish recollections, has been the first to teach the practice of these principles and to prove their force and vitality. The next step in the way of advancement is to demonstrate that the same principles are as useful and as necessary in the treatment of actual disease as they are in prevention. ”

“ Notwithstanding all that Medicine can achieve, to succour the body as it struggles against actual disease—notwithstanding those resources of drugs and handicraft, by which the physician or surgeon opposes death or mitigates pain in the detailed exercise of his art, all past experience, and every transaction of our daily practice, confirm the popular adage that prevention is better than cure. ”

“ It follows also that, since the cure of advanced cases is impossible and since every case which exists is a menace to the health of the community on account of the danger of the spread of the disease, the prevention is far more important than the cure. ”

“ The most important aid in the future to the influence of preventive medicine must be the education of the people so that the conditions of disease, the intrinsic and the extrinsic causes and the manner in which these act, shall all become a part of general knowledge, and the sympathy of the people with health legislation and their active assistance in carrying out measures of prevention may be obtained. ”

“ It is natural, perhaps, that this newly awakened interest in the prevention of disease should center in the infectious diseases, in which the relation between cause and effect is often so obvious and the means of prevention are so logical. ”

“ The reason why even more progress has not been made in the prevention of disease is not far to seek. In order to prevent a disease it is necessary to remove its causes. The causes of disease can only be ascertained by a careful investigation of its phenomena ”

“ Thanks to the dedicated efforts of scientists and researchers and the strong support of the American public, today we stand at the threshold of a new frontier in the prevention and treatment of heart disease. ”

“ To these benefactors of our race is also due the honor of initiating and developing the widespread interest which now prevails throughout our country in the conservation of health and life. They have demonstrated that morbidity and mortality can be reduced—that human life can be prolonged by spreading and applying our present knowledge of the science of disease prevention. ”

“ The researches which have been made on the nutrition of man and the nutritive value of different foods are of great importance, and this knowledge has not yet begun to be applied as it should be.
There seems to be a balance maintained between the restriction of disease by prevention and the increased influence of social conditions which are in themselves factors of disease. Preventive medicine seems to have made possible, by restricting their harmful influence, the increase in industrialism, in urban life, and in the intercommunications of peoples. ”

“ The prevention of disease epidemics is one of the most striking achievements of modern science. Food, clothing, furniture, and other objects contaminated in any way by disease germs may be disinfected by chemicals or by heat, and widespread infection from persons suffering with a contagious disease may be prevented. ”

“ The removal of prejudices with regard to sanitary regulations for the prevention of disease and modern advances in the treatment of disease is an important social duty. There is no doubt that if this influence be properly directed, sanitary measures of various kinds will be much more readily enforced and the precautions necessary to prevent the spread of serious infectious ailments more faithfully observed. ”

“ It means that physicians as a class have taken up seriously and systematically the prevention of disease and the education of the public as to how the elimination of avoidable diseases can be secured. ”

“ Therefore, by the use of a diet in which animal food forms a large portion, properly regulated, and [Pg 152] systematic exercise in the open air, the practice of the long inhalations before recommended, warm, comfortable clothing, together with a residence, if practicable, during the changeable and inclement seasons of the year, in an equable climate, we can often entirely arrest the development of the disease. Prevention here is not only better than cure, but often all that is possible. ”

“ In regard to the prevention of this disease, all that I have said or can say concerning the means of fortifying and invigorating the general health, would be as appropriate in this as in any other place. May I not hope that when you consider, each and any one of you, how troublesome this disease is, and how bad a state of things it indicates, that you will use your best influence upon those around you—that by a correct, systematic course of living, its attacks may be warded off. It is far easier, as well as more desirable, to prevent hysteria than to cure it. ”

“ Enormously valuable and important as are the services to human welfare, health, and happiness which can be rendered by the destruction of the living external causes of disease and the prevention of contagion, our most permanent and sub [Pg 44] stantial victories are won by appealing to and increasing this long-descended and hard-won power of individual resistance. ”

“ The methods now in use to prevent physical disease may be applied to a considerable extent in preventing mental disease. They include the dissemination of knowledge of hygiene and sanitation, prompt treatment of incipient diseases, segregation of those suffering from contagious diseases, and immunization of those liable to exposure to pathogenic germs. Another line of attack consists in safeguarding the public from injurious food and artificial beverages and from polluted air and water. ”

“ The infection arises from a want of cleanliness and ventilation, and its influence is promoted by damp, fatigue, sorrow, and hunger. A vigilant exercise of all the means of prevention might, in a short period, supersede the use of hospitals, by extinguishing the disease; a prospect in which the philanthropist might more safely indulge, if he could calculate with the same confidence on the wisdom as on the power of his species. ”

“ The effects will always be commensurate with the causes.
The science of natural living and healing shows clearly that what we call disease is primarily Nature's effort to eliminate morbid matter and to restore the normal functions of the body; that the processes of disease are just as orderly in their way as everything else in Nature; that we must not check or suppress them, but cooperate with them. Thus we learn, slowly and laboriously, the all-important lesson that "obedience to the law" is the only means of prevention of disease, and the only cure. ”

“ Having a firm belief in the proverb that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," the author has endeavored, in the succeeding pages, to point out a series of hygienic rules which, if applied to the nursling, can hardly fail to maintain good health, give vigor to the frame, and so lessen susceptibility to disease. ”

“ The more skilled the allopathic school becomes in the suppression and prevention of acute diseases by drugs, knife, x-rays, serums, vaccination virus, etc., the greater will be the increase of chronic dyspepsia, nervous prostration, insanity, locomotor ataxy, paresis, cancer, secondary and tertiary syphilis, tuberculosis and many other so-called incurable diseases. Thus, the standard medical practice is self-supporting; the treatment of acute conditions assuring a lifelong supply of chronic conditions for the doctor to treat. ”

“ Public health in the main is concerned primarily [Pg 45] with the environmental measures calculated to prevent the attack of man by disease, whether pre-natal or post-natal. These measures may be industrial, as in the prevention of accidents, of dust, of noxious vapours; or sanitary, as in the control of water supplies, food, or milk, and in the removal of organic filth; or may be the application of preventive medicine against infectious and non-infectious diseases ”

“ In most other forms of disease, individuals may [Pg 6] exercise their own judgment or preferences in the selection of medical attendants, nurses, and such appliances as may be thought necessary to comfort and recovery; they more or less fully realize their own condition and requirements, are capable, in some measure at least, of controlling their desires and feelings, and of explaining their experiences, and are generally influenced by such favorable indications as may arise in the progress of their diseases. ”

“ The increased knowledge of the internal and external influences upon health obtained within recent years, and the practical applications of which it is capable in the prevention of disease, gives rise to many interesting problems, some of which are being solved, some are only partially touched, and others remain unelucidated. ”

“ Combe: “The little regard,” he says, “which has hitherto been paid to the laws of the human constitution, as the true basis on which our attempts to improve the condition of man ought to rest, will be obvious from the fact, that, notwithstanding the direct uses, to which a knowledge of the conditions, which regulate the healthy action of the bodily organs, may be applied in the prevention, detection, and treatment of disease, there is scarcely a medical school in this country (Great Britain) [4] in which any special provision is made for teaching it.... ”

“ A new and in many respects a nobler conception of medicine has been developed. Formerly medical practice was almost exclusively a personal service to the sick individual, and measures looking toward the general relief of disease and its prevention received scanty consideration. The idea of a wider service to the city, to the state, to the nation, to humanity rather than the personal service to the individual, is becoming dominant in medicine. ”

“ Think of hog cholera, a germ disease; of tuberculosis, a germ disease; of stomach worms, parasites; of staggers, a mold disease; of abortion, a germ disease; and hundreds of like nature, all due to parasites and germs, disease agents that disturb and destroy [86] the delicate organs or exposed regions, as the case may be, regardless of age, value, or breed.
Of course, remedies and treatment are being worked out to meet these individual diseases as they occur. Nevertheless, the best treatment is prevention. It is far better to prevent than to cure ”

“ The preventive method does not wait until diseases have fully developed and gained the ascendancy in the body, but concentrates its best endeavors on preventing, by hygienic living and by natural methods of treatment, the development of diseases. By these it endeavors to put the human body in such a normal, healthy condition that it is practically proof against infection or contagion by disease taints and miasms, and against the inroads of germs, bacteria and parasites. ”

“ The disease control expert’s preliminary investigation suggested that some persons with cases of gastroenteritis had eaten at salad bars at restaurants in the community before becoming ill. One week later, on about September 24, the disease control expert learned that there were additional cases of illness in the community and that some affected persons had been hospitalized because of their illnesses. ”

“ In most other lands, and particularly in the United States, public health has been regarded almost exclusively as a matter of protection against germs; but protection against germs, while effective in defending us from plague and other epidemics of acute [Pg 105] diseases, is almost powerless to prevent the chronic diseases of middle and late life. These maladies—Bright’s disease, heart disease, nervous breakdowns—are due primarily to unhygienic personal habits. ”

“ Specificity requires that an exposure be associated with a single specific effect. Furthermore, if a disease has no other major risk factors (e.g., asbestos and mesothelioma) , the association is often very credible and the studies are the least susceptible to recall bias. The irritative symptoms of the eyes, skin, and upper respiratory tract reported in CCP studies are common effects with many risk factors. ”

“ The recognition of this fact has enormously increased the efficiency of the medical profession in dealing with disease, by putting us on the track of imitating the methods which the body itself uses for destroying, or checking the spread of, invading germs and leading us to trust nature and try to work with her instead of against her. ”

“ When, however, we know that two-thirds of them are a late result of some of the preventable infectious diseases and fevers, we can realize that it is perfectly possible to prevent them, and that prevention is the best cure. ”

“ Although medicine is useful in some instances, yet, in a great proportion of the cases of disease, including fevers and inflammations of all kinds, attention to the laws of health will tend to relieve the system from disease; more certainly and speedily, and with less danger, than when medicines are administered. ”

“ Another point might then also have become clear: the whole tendency of medicine is towards a recognition of the predominance of Hygiene. The modern aim is to prevent disease. The whole national system of medicine is being slowly though steadily built up in recognition of the great fact that the interests of Health come before the interests of Disease. ”