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57
General Observations.
It is only when disaster overtakes a community that attention
is drawn to the existence of the environmental services. Preventive
medicine is one of the silent services, and becomes "news" only
when something goes wrong. The basic requirements for good
health are few—fresh air and sunshine, pure food and water, adequate
rest and exercise, warmth. So vital are they that anything must
be regarded as prejudicial to health which restricts in any way the
quality of these fundamental needs. The greatest advances in human
health and happiness have been made in the realm of preventive
rather than curative medicine; and health is to be found in a way
of life rather than in a bottle of medicine.
It is to be hoped that local sanitary authorities and the appropriate
central Government departments will devote more of their
time and money to smoke abatement by encouraging the replacement
of obsolete industrial plant, by providing some incentive to
help in the elimination of smoke from domestic sources, and by taking
steps to reduce the gross pollution from industries such as railways,
gas works and electricity generating stations. Meanwhile town
dwellers are languishing for want of the health-giving rays of the
sun that cannot penetrate the overhanging pall of smoke, housewives
are burdened with the frequent washing and cleaning of curtains
and other fabrics, and their houses and public buildings are being
defaced and destroyed by the corrosive action of the atmospheric
pollution.