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"The position is now very different. The prevention of disease has
come to be universally recognized as being the chief aim of
medical work and most of the administrative medical officers
are now enthusiastic advocates of disease prevention; indeed
some of them have been specialists in public health for the
greater part of their previous service. All of them state
that they are prepared to co-operate with the Directors of
Public Health and to insist on a similar co-operation on the
part of the members of their staff. This combination of
effort does not mean the swallowing up of one department by
another, nor does it imply the elimination of the principle of
division of labour. It does mean that whenever it is in the
interests of efficiency and economy, the medical man ought to
engage both in medical relief and public health work and
that ever increasing emphasis must be laid on disease preven-
tion."
3. Opening a discussion on the organisation of Health Departments
at the first meeting of the Central Advisory Board of Health on the 23rd
June 1937 the Public Health Commissioner (Colonel Russell) drew attention
to the need for co-ordination in the following words:—
"I think it will be admitted on all hands that a Public Health
Department has a number of functions which are distinct
from those of Medical Department and that these functions
are best performed by trained health officers who can give them
their full time. It is unnecessary here to give a detailed
list of these functions, but I may mention as illustrations the
collection of vital statistics, the control of epidemics and the
planning of water supplies, of drainage schemes and of con-
servancy arrangements. These and others of the kind can
only be properly carried out by officers of a Public Health
Department, who can spend a large proportion of their time
on inspection tours and who can go on tour at once when an
emergency arises. I do not wish to elaborate this point
further as I hope that it is generally agreed that every town
of any size and every district requires a trained health officer
if the standard of environmental hygiene is to be steadily
raised and if progress in general public health is to be made.
On the other hand, there are certain subjects, such as tuber-
culosis and maternity and child welfare, in which the Public
Health and the Medical Departments are mutually concerned
and in regard to which there must be co-operation and co-ordi-
nation of effort. For this kind of subject the Civil Surgeon and
the Medical Officer of Health should be closely associated,
working together in a common cause, and unless that associa-
tion is achieved, in one way or another, progress in preventive
medicine must be correspondingly retarded".
4. Other speakers also drew attention to this aspect of health adminis-
tration and the meeting unanimously adopted the two following important
resolutions:—
(i) "The Board desires to bring to the notice of all Governments,
Provincial Medical Councils and the Medical Council of India