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373
Venereal Disease and Tuberculosis. Let me remind you how each
justifies the old contention that, above all, the public needs educating.
As to Housing: We are not going to secure decent homes by
merely building decent houses; decent tenants are even more
essential than decent houses. We seriously discount the value of
removing slums if we neglect the ignorant and careless slummers.
As to Infant Mortality: The preventable part of this must be
attributed mainly to defective knowledge of "mothering." Good
mothering protects a child against almost every handicapping circumstance
but poverty; on the other hand, nothing protects a
child against bad and ignorant mothering; therefore it is of prime
importance to educate the mothers.
As to Clean Milk: Elaborate premises will secure very little
without the practice of elaborate cleanliness. As it is impossible to
ensure this by official supervision, we must educate those who
collect and deal in milk to an enlightened concern for guarding its
purity; and the public must be educated to demand clean milk,
and to keep it clean after it enters the home. Short of such education
an Act of Parliament will, in my judgment, have no more success
in securing cleanliness of milk than other Acts have had in securing
its freedom from adulteration with water.
As to Venereal Disease: In our campaign against this disease
our most effective weapon consists of efforts to raise the standard
of public knowledge and morals. The "Hidden Scourge" must
be dragged into public light and the evils and perils of impurity
generally recognised. Meanwhile the costly Treatment Centres are
little more than palliatives.
As to Tuberculosis: The admitted fact that the prevention of
Tuberculosis is a matter of healthy living must be made the property
of everybody. The training of the young to healthy habits of life
and a broadcast dissemination throughout the community of knowledge
to this end, are essentials to the solution of the problem of the
prevention of this disease.
Indeed, the need for and value of propaganda in reference to
preventable disease is so great that to neglect it is indefensible. All