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205
SECTION VI
ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH SERVICES
Survival of man depends upon the habitability of the world and,
in my 1968 Report, I remarked on the fact that, in this respect,
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. Some 200 years ago and with
what now seems remarkable foresight Oliver Goldsmith, a contemporary
of Samuel Johnson, wrote :—
"Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay".
World-wide events such as atmospheric contamination, bigger
dust bowls, extensions of dying forests, greater oceanic pollution,
all brought about by man's culpable neglect of his environment,
seem to pass almost unnoticed.
Closer home, our industrial and domestic problems of river and
air pollution have only recently sprung into prominence and these,
together with those concerning soil instability arising from intensive
cultivation and excessive use of artificial fertilisers which, with
residual chemical pesticides and herbicides, etc., are resulting in a
decimation of wild life in general. Ecologically the situation is
rapidly becoming one, not merely of well-being but of survival.
It is brutally clear that underlying all environmental pollution
is man's inability to regulate his own fecundity. Once a pattern
of increased population has been established its geometrical progression
becomes increasingly difficult to control. In the interim,
demands not only for the necessities but for all things associated
with living continue to grow correspondingly and it is in the
attempts to meet these insatiable claims that man desecrates his
surroundings. Life, especially in the larger conurbations, is
becoming less and less tolerable for reasons directly linked with
an uncontrolled population growth. Increases in waste products
are inevitable and problems associated with their safe disposal grow
steadily day by day. Indeed, physical pollution could lead eventually
to the disintegration of society as we now know it. The
recently established Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution
has already stated that "Failing deliberate measures to control
pollution and to repair past damage, there is likely to be a substantial
deterioration of the environment in the years ahead and
the quality of life in Britain will be correspondingly impoverished,
despite an appearance of greater affluence".
Over the years, society's propensity for sliding into insanitary
chaos, largely by default, has been arrested and often reversed