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HEALTH EDUCATION
Work on Health Education was continuous throughout the year The en
couragement of hygienic living is the life work of the Public Health Inspector,
who is visiting day after day, homes, shops, factories, restaurants, canteens,
public houses and places where people congregate, always with the aim of sub
stituting clean conditions for dirty, and in face to face conversation conveying
ideas on matters of health and hygiene, In addition to our own work, other
bodies such as County Council staff, medical staff in hospitals, and general
practitioners in their practices, have many opportunities for teaching healthy
living and prevention of illness and disease. Whenever teaching aids, poster
or other printed material is required for the purpose of health teaching, it
can be supplied from this Department.
Since it seems that the public has become somewhat resistant to pictorial
propaganda because of the amount of bombardment received in newspapers, on
poster boards, in the cinema and on television,, there is need for posters of
memorable design quick impact and if possible, wit. The Keep Britain Tidy'
lion poster was an excellent example of this, simple, amusing, and still interesting
after being seen thousands of times, and it was a pleasure to distribute.
All new posters available on Health Subjects are studied, and a selection is
made of those most likely to appeal They are posted on the public notice
boards and local authority premises, and when the subject is suitable, sometimes
in factory canteens and other establishments,
Although often it is difficult to get persons, or groups of persons, to be
as interested as they should be in living healthily, the fear of illhealth makes
them very receptive to discussion of disease, operations and hospitals, so this
strange mental quirk can be used by the practitioner of preventive medicine as
a vehicle and during a talk on the failures of prevention (i.e. the persons who
need the services of private doctor or hospital) suggestions on the achievement
of success in prevention can be introduced.
The Central Council for Health Education, to which the Borough Council
subscribes, issued much information throughout 1961 on two topical subjects,
The case for Fluoridation of Water Supplies' and Smoking and Lung Cancer" and
use was made of their Cancer poster, their poster on prevention of scalding of
young children and their dysentery and poliomyelitis leaflets. These latter
were ordered in quantity and taken by any public health inspector paying a first
visit to a house in which a case of one of these diseases occurred.