Excerpt from Public Health Values: A Few Modern Sanitary Fallacies

New York City spends, through its Health Department, about $120, 000 a year on the inspection of its milk supply, for the year 1912 the city appropriated, for the purpose of keeping its streets clean, over $7, 400, 000. The first expenditure was applied to an exceedingly important and vital phase of public health work, but it is hard to show that the $7, 400, 000 expended for street cleaning and waste removal was of much direct health value. This is not meant to be in any respect a disparaging contrast, it is not intended to advocate dirty streets, nor to urge the expenditure of less money for refuse removal - probably more should be spent than at the present to accomplish worthwhile results. It is admitted that indirectly, at least, such factors in our environment are of more or less importance in effecting our general welfare. Even though it were of no importance from the point of view of health, the requirements of aestheticism and of decency justify the larger expenditure. This is an age in which the mass of people are exceedingly enthusiastic and to some degree hysterical about health. By those at all familiar with health problems, the value of a non-infected milk supply is appreciated. The number of lives sacrificed to the cause of filthy milk each year is enormous. Is it not rather strange that New York City should spend one-sixtieth as much on the protection of its milk supply as on refuse removal? It it not in some part due to the widespread misunderstanding of the relative values of the factors under discussion?

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.