Health education

“ 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. ”

“ And the importance of understanding the true conditions of health and disease—of knowing how to acquire and preserve that healthy habit of body which the most tedious and costly medical treatment so often fails to restore when once lost, should secure a place in general education for the principal maxims of hygiene, and some of those even of practical medicine. For those who aim at high intellectual cultivation, the study of physiology has still greater recommendations, and is, in the present state of advancement of the higher studies, a real necessity. ”

“ I have no hesitation in making the statement that although there is need for large additions to present educational work in hygiene, the utilisation of existing knowledge by those holding responsible positions is even more important. Is it not true that it is easier to promote educational “drives” for any single branch of health education, than to obtain money for the actual execution of health work? ”

“ The physician who refuses to tell the board of health when smallpox or typhoid fever first breaks out takes human life just as truly as if he tore up the tracks in front of an express train. This is another way of saying that parents and teachers must fit themselves to know whether the family physician and their community's physicians are efficient practitioners and teachers. Every one can learn enough about the preventable causes of sickness and depleted vitality to insist upon the ounce of education and prevention that is better than a pound of cure. ”

“ If this is desirable for elementary general education, it is even more important when the aim is the restoration and the maintenance of the highest attainable level of health for each member of the community, who is willing to share in the offered benefits. ”

“ HEALTH SUPERVISION The Relation of Health to School Work
Ordinary school work is so dependent on health that one wonders how teachers of an earlier generation could have failed to see the absolute necessity of systematic supervision of health. When we think, for example, of the consequences of absence from class exercises because of illness; when we think of a child’s sense organs unable to carry to his mind the full message brought by the sounds and sights of the schoolroom ”

“ If our faith in school medical inspection is justifiable and if we really mean to decrease the appallingly large amount of illness and physical discomforts among school children and conserve their health, thus promoting well-being and sound education, we must recognize that our underlying principles must be altered and actual conditions met more satisfactorily than by mere observation and noticing of defects. ”

“ The relatively large endowments given to medical education and research in recent years have created as it were a trust to be administered by the medical profession in the interest of human society in the broadest and highest significance of the term. This I interpret to mean that we must endeavor to make all advance in our knowledge of health and disease common property so far as this may be possible, to disseminate broadcast the benefits of research into the laws of health, so that they may enter into and form an integral part of the life of the individual and the community. ”

“ A campaign of education is demanded to arrest the enormous loss of life which is carrying so many to untimely graves, and the instruction given in this volume will be of inestimable value in teaching people how to avoid avoidable disease. ”

“ The attitude which is encouraged by a study of anticipatory measures is the same as that which is coming into the practice of medicine. There was a time when the physician regarded it as his chief duty to deal with disease after it had actually appeared. To-day the far-sighted practitioner is an advocate of what he calls preventive medicine. He aims to get the community interested in preparing in advance wholesome conditions which will conduce to health. The teacher’s task ought not to be that of constantly penalizing pupils who have done wrong ”

“ Education and the Public Health.—The basis of successful public health work is the education of people in hygiene and sanitation. If the people can be brought to realize the transcendent importance of the work, their co-operation will be given cheerfully. Where the health regulations are now disobeyed it is largely because their value to the individual, as well as to the community, has not been made clear. ”

“ As a labour of love towards the world in general and the people of my adopted country in particular, I have made it my duty to formulate the substance of my researches in the field of science—researches which represent the struggles of a lifetime—in a large and comprehensive work which, to the scientist as well as to the laymen, will constitute in the most detailed and complete degree a reliable guide to the conservation of health which, even now, in the immediate present, has come to be regarded not only as a scientific phase of education, but as a duty incumbent upon every citizen. ”

“ Within the scope of medicine are included the basic sciences of physiology and pathology; and the instruction and training of every child and young person in elementary hygiene, including dietetics, necessarily come also within the range of our subject.
There are still agnostics, usually of exclusively classical and mathematical education, even among men holding official sanitary administrative positions, who doubt the value of the application of medical knowledge to the extent indicated ”

“ Sooner or later the theory that this can be done will be destroyed by the logic of events, for health work in our public schools is constantly becoming a more intimate and integral part of the every-day education of all the children. ”

“ The progress of preventive medicine has also introduced another incentive to the diffusion of this training; for it affords convincing proofs that the foundation of the national health is laid in the home. If, however, the foundation is permitted to be imperfect the edifice must necessarily be unstable. ”

“ However, they are learning, in increasing numbers, that if they would keep their patrons well, they have to give them education along the line of hygiene and dietetics, with a little mental training thrown in. ”

“ But this is not all: our great need—education in Health—implies the confirming and improving the health by means of education. It is not sufficient that the course of studies laid down for children and youth should not injure them—it is also necessary that it should do them positive physical good; they should be stronger, better, and brighter for the hours spent in technical education, or there is something wrong in the plan of education. If lessons produce headache, lassitude, inactivity of functions, if they make children pale, quiet, spiritless, then the lessons are bad ”

“ Were there one fixed standard of health to which all could attain, the practice of hygiene would be attended by a charming simplicity. Unfortunately, modern science forces us to conclude that each individual can only reach his own particular standard of well-being. The grades of health are consequently infinite in number, and the task which devolves on parents and guardians to secure that the standard possible to each child under their care be attained is no light one. ”

“ Under the circumstances it may well be a matter for surprise that we have been so slow to perceive that the right performance of these duties demands a preliminary study of the art of preserving health and promoting progress, and we marvel at the placid spirit of content which has sanctioned the conversion into a stronghold of empiricism, the very place where a sound knowledge of progressive sanitary science is of primary importance. ”

“ Medical inspection is an extension of the activities of the school in which the educator and the physician join hands to insure for each child such conditions of health and vitality as will best enable him to take full advantage of the free education offered by the state. Its object is to better health conditions among school children, safeguard them from disease, and render them healthier, happier, and more vigorous. ”

“ Responsibility for optimizing health must be shared by individuals, employers, health care systems and communities. Education is a powerful tool for health promotion. The health care system, health plans, providers and government must promote and engage in education activities for individuals, communities and providers. Effectiveness. The relationship between specific health interventions and their desired health outcomes must be backed by unbiased, objective medical evidence. ”

“ Health, there cannot be the slightest doubt, is a vastly more fundamental and important matter than education, to say nothing of such minor matters as the post office or the telephone system. Yet we have nationalised these before even giving a thought to the Nationalisation of Health. ”

“ That we do not pay sufficient attention to the physical health of our students, making health of secondary, tertiary, or quaternary importance, or often not giving it a single thought; leaving it 134 absolutely to regulate itself, when it should be the first, primary, determinate aim and object of all education. ”

“ How they can be, if not destroyed, at least arrested?—These are questions worthy the attention, not of statesmen only and medical men, but of every father and mother in these isles. I shall say somewhat about them in this Essay; and say it in a form which ought to be intelligible to fathers and mothers of every class, from the highest to the lowest, in hopes of convincing some of them at least that the science of health, now so utterly neglected in our curriculum of so-called education, ought to be taught—the rudiments of it at least—in every school, college, and university. ”

“ V. In training our future practitioners of the healing art, the cultivation of respect for life, and the strengthening of enlightened sympathetic conscience in dealing with all poor or helpless creatures, are of paramount importance. The present system of medical education requires revision in order to make health, not disease, the central subject of study. ”

“ In the main, however, the care of the health of the people is a governmental function, whether it has to do with the prevention of sickness or the satisfactory medical treatment and nursing of the sick.
There is no early prospect of voluntary workers becoming unnecessary; for average human nature, as represented on governmental bodies, is shortsighted and needs much education, morally and intellectually, before it will undertake the whole sphere of work called for in the interest of the welfare of the mother and her child. ”

“ Now, in the face of such facts as these, is it too much to ask of mothers, sisters, aunts, nurses, governesses—all who may be occupied in the care of children, especially of girls—that they should study thrift of human health and human life, by studying somewhat the laws of life and health? There are books—I may say a whole literature of books—written by scientific doctors on these matters, which are in my mind far more important to the school-room than half the trashy accomplishments, so-called, which are expected to be known by governesses. ”

“ But, as to the laws of personal health: enough, and more than enough, is known already, to be applied safely and easily by any adults, however unlearned, to the preservation not only of their own health, but of that of their children. ”

“ The education of children and youth in Health is a subject in which women are especially concerned. It is a large subject; it demands not only the introduction of sound sanitary instruction suitable for different ages into all our schoolrooms and colleges, but the creation of a love of such knowledge and the habit of its practical application. ”

“ The child has a claim upon the state and the state a claim upon the child which demands recognition. Education without health is useless. It would be better to sacrifice the education if, in order to attain it, the child must lay down his good health as a price. Education must comprehend the whole man and the whole man is built fundamentally on what he is physically.
Objections to Medical Inspection
The objection that the school has no right to permit or require medical inspection of the children will not bear close scrutiny or logical analysis. ”

“ Once the idea of making health a matter of intelligent interest took root, it was sure to grow. Correction of physical defects is itself a tardy method of dealing with the situation. Why not prevent the defects? This kind of thinking turned attention to the environment of the child and the necessity of making it as conducive to health as possible.... ”

“ Finally, it is by no means satisfactory that we should stop with the negative work of preventing disease and unfavorable conditions. We must be positive in our treatment of health. We want more health, more vigor, more efficiency. ”

“ After we have taught the condition of health, we must teach also the condition of disease; of those diseases specially which tend to lessen wholesale the health of townsfolk, exposed to an artificial mode of life. Surely young men and women should be taught something of the causes of zymotic disease, and of scrofula, consumption, rickets, dipsomania, cerebral derangement, and such like. They should be shown the practical value of pure air, pure water, unadulterated food, sweet and dry dwellings. ”