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199
SECTION VI
ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH SERVICES
Today, humanity is confronted with a dilemma. It lives in a
technological age which is dedicated to making life easier but
which, paradoxically, threatens its very existence.
As a species, man is reproducing at a pace which is almost comparable
with bacterial multiplication. Consequently demands, not
only for the necessities but for all things of life, are advancing at
an unprecedented rate and in attempting to meet these insatiable
claims man is "fouling his own nest". Increases in waste products
are inevitable and problems connected with their safe disposal
grow steadily day by day.
There is certainly a growing awareness of the dangers of
pollution but how is control of malaria and similar diseases to be
effective if the use of D.D.T. is prohibited? How can the land be
made to produce its maximum without intensive cultivation and
the use of fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides, or the farmer to
rear healthy animals in sufficient quantities and sizes without
extensive use of hormones and antibiotics? Can we expect greater
crops and more animals on less land and tended by fewer persons
without chemicals and mechanical assistance? Is a "return to
nature" in these matters right or even possible?
So far, challenges of this kind have always been met and it may
be that synthesis of protein from inorganic matter, turning
vegetable materials directly into protein without the aid of farm
animals and providing potable water by desalination of the sea
will become practical and economic possibilities in the near future.
In the meantime, it would seem that man's hopes for Utopia
are slowly being swallowed in a combination of miasma and detritus
resulting from his own fecundity.
These factors fall into the category of "environmental" and
include air, soil and water pollution; urbanisation with its constant
threat of overcrowding, squalor, disease, interminable and unrelenting
noise and social maladjustment; food additives, radioactive
residues, population problems, etc.
Recent progress in the sphere of medicine has added years to
life but this is of little value if we merely add quantity but not
quality to living. Health is man's most precious possession and
our environmental health services have played and will continue
to play a most important part in its promotion and conservation.