Dr. C, Noel Davis on Develop ments Since Ancient Greece:
The Great Men of the Past Speaking before a large and distinguished company at a tiffin of the Union Club, Tuesday Dr. C. Noe! Davis, Commissioner of Public Health, took for his subject "Jdealism in Public Health." He said that in no sphere of human life Jand activity was idealism more] Obvious than in thab of public} health, which was the science and fort of preventing disease, prolonzing life and promoting physical and mental well-being and efficiency, through the organized efforts of society for the sanitation of the environment, the control of com-muniaable disease, the education of the individual in the principles and practice of personal hygiene, the Provision of medical and nursing services for the early diagnosis ard preventive treatment of disease and the development of social agencies which would ensure to every individual in the community a wndard of living and an occupati life adequate for and compatible with the highest degree of health.
Tike ideal of controlling the fores of Nature for the uses and purposes fof man, must have glimmered in tthe minds of our remote ancestors, who painted frescoes on the walls fof their eaves. In ancient Greece there were visions of fragmentary public health ideal, for there, per-anal hygiene was practised for the rst time in history, in a scope and Jdegzee never again approached, and fas" personal hygiene flowered Gresce, 20 public sanitation reaches! 'a brilliant development in ancient The Dark Ages followed and made possible the control and prevention of these scourges.
One by one," said Dr. Davis, the communicable disappearing, and if we only had desire and determination enough to apply our mow ledge, the majority of them could be wiped out in a comparatively short period of The modern aims are the proper nutrition of the people by safeguard. ing the food supply, the control of the racial poisons, such as alcohol, opium and other drugs, the banishment of communicable disease, the [welfare of the industrial worker and of every member of the community. These are the aims of curative and preventive medicine, and together become the aim of creative medicine, the fostering and maintenance of health which means not only freedom from disease, but full and harmonious development and activity of all the faculties of body and mind, These are universal aims, and an inspiration to all the nations of the earth. The leaders will always be an aristocracy of jcharceter, talent and wisdom and in accordance with its enlightenment and desire, and democracy will follow."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.