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45
HEALTH EDUCATION AND HOME SAFETY
The Aims of Health Education
Recent discoveries in Science and Medicine have given mankind
mastery over so many factors in his environment that the
man-in-the-street just does not realise those vast regions of nature
which simply have not been explored, and when some tragic
epidemic occurs he is staggered, feels that "somebody" is to
blame, and that a scapegoat must be found, preferably amongst
those shadowy but powerful people, the "Scientists", the "Health
Authorities" or the "Government", who did not stop the tragedy
from occurring.
People forget how much we do not yet know about human
illness, but even with our present knowledge, fail to realise that
"public health" is a "public concern". Hygiene is a communal
activity which concerns all of us, not just some of us, and prevention
of disease will not be achieved by casting responsibility upon
the shoulders of the few.
Progress in controlling infection is truly a team effort, not
confined to the work of the medical men, but needing the
conscious attention of Education Authorities, Commerce, Industry,
and, in fact, the whole community. Until the public generally and
particularly those in positions of responsibility, feel this way,
progress will remain slow.
The improvement in health of the British public over the
last 100 years has been a combined exercise, essential roles being
played firstly by the visionaries and pioneers, later by other dedicated
workers in the Public Health Service, by Bacteriologists,
Engineers, Public Health Inspectors and others. There must be
added to this team, however, the people who have often developed
and provided the weapons for the medical man, Industrial
Organisations, whose own research staff have produced excellent
drugs and antibiotics for the cure of illness, together with the
disinfectants and detergents which have done so much to prevent
the spread of infection and help control outbreaks of communicable
disease.
It has been learned that one of the objects of health education
is to inform people, to give them facts so that they may better
understand the reasons behind modern health principles and precepts.