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4
The aim of the public health service is twofold.
First to try and ensure that there is a healthy environment
in which people can live and work and secondly, to try and
persuade the public to live in a healthy way„ As a very
simple example, a room should have a proper window to provide
light and ventilation, but the occupier must also be persuaded
not to cover it so much as to exclude the light nor to keep
it permanently closed to prevent proper ventilation.
A great deal has already been done to provide a
good environment and although there is no reason for complacency
or satisfaction there are powers under the various Acts of
Parliament dealing with Housing, Factories and Public Health
to provide and maintain at least a minimum standard. It is
not possible to foresee the time when these powers will be
unnecessary. Houses get old and worn and need repair; other
houses are inhabitated in a way which was not intended when
they were built and they require alteration or improvement;
manufacturing processes and techniques may bring new risks
which must be guarded against. Nevertheless Hampstead is
fortunate in having an establishment of public health inspectors
who have great experience and ability in this work and the
decreasing number of complaints of unsatisfactory conditions
is a measure of their success.
Persuading the members of the public to live in a
healthy manner is a much more difficult matter. It is usual
to speak of it today as "Health Education", almost as if this
were something new whereas in its wider sense it started with
the beginnings of civilisation.
Health education in Hampstead has always been a
function of the Public Health Department but it is by no
means a prerogative. A great deal of work is done by the
London County Council, by doctors and nurses, school teachers,
the press, societies, clubs and associations and by the public
themselves. Health education like most of medicine is
composed of a little special knowledge and a great deal of
commonsense. It must be based on the fact that the population
is very largely composed of sensible people who, if given the
necessary information, will act sensibly.
To reach the whole public is, however, an enormous
task. Posters and leaflets have their uses but only some
people consciously notice them and very few are influenced by