Civics and HealthAllen, William H. (WIlliam Harvey)
Science
Civics and Health
Allen, William H. (WIlliam Harvey)
Hygiene; Public health
The machinery for preventing these evils is discussed in Chapter XXIX.
Suffice it here to present to parents and teachers the need for
examination in advance of certification that will show whether or not
those who make a livelihood by caring for others' health are equipped
to mitigate rather than aggravate evils, and for further tests by which
the public can learn from time to time which, among those professional
men who are protected by the public against competition, continue to be
safe. Finally, if, as will be clearly seen, it is desirable that what
we call professional ethics persist and that self-advertisement be
discouraged, society must, for its own protection, adopt some other
means than epithets to correct the evils of self-advertisement and
quackery. Even though we admit the responsibility of each citizen when
he goes to the house of a private practitioner who has made no other
effort to lure him thither than to place a card in the window, it must
be seen that we cannot hold responsible for their choice men and women
who receive through newspapers, magazines, or circulars convincing
notices that Dr. So-and-So or the Integrity Company or the Peerless
Dental Parlor will place at their disposal, at prices within their
reach, skill and devotion absolutely beyond their reach at the office
of an efficient private practitioner. Some way must be found by which
departments of health will currently impose tests of methods and
results upon physicians, opticians, pharmacists, manufacturers of
medicine, and dentists.
As laymen become more intelligent regarding their own bodies and
healthy living, it grows harder and harder for quacks and incompetents
to mislead and exploit them. Better than any possible outside safeguard
is hygienic living. Fortunately, we can all learn the simple tests of
environment and of living necessary to the selection of physicians,
dentists, and opticians, or other "architects of health" whose
efficiency and integrity are beyond question.
PART IV. OFFICIAL MACHINERY FOR ENFORCING HEALTH RIGHTS
CHAPTER XXVII
DEPARTMENTS OF SCHOOL HYGIENE
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