[Report 1932] / Medical Officer of Health, St Andrews.

  • St. Andrews (Scotland). Council.
Date:
1932
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1932] / Medical Officer of Health, St Andrews. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    INTRODUCTORY. Among the social changes which have occurred during recent years one of the most remarkable has been the extent to which facilities for the treatment of the nation’s sick have developed. Hospitals originally charitable centres for the general treatment of people in necessitous circumstances have become highly specialised and complex organisations at which, in crowded areas, more than four-fifths of the population seek, as a right, relief from ailments. Nursing homes for the accommodation of those able or willing to pay have increased in number. Clinics for the treatment of special diseases and disorders have become more and more numerous. Throughout the country strenuous endeavours have been made to cure the diseases from which the people are suffering. On the other hand it is unfortunate that so comparatively little has been done to prevent these common diseases. Wide spread although the ramifications of the statutory public health services of the country are and much as they have done to prevent infectious diseases, it is evident that little effect is being produced upon the incidence of the main mass of diseases which afflict the population. From a recent analysis of the causes of sickness and disability among the insured population in St. Andrews, for instance, it was evident that only about 15 per cent, of the illnesses came within the purview of public health administration, the majority of the complaints being outwith official concern. That so little opportunity is afforded for an organised study of the volume of information and breadth of experience which accumulates in the minds of general practitioners as patient after patient passes through their consulting rooms is to be regretted, and it is equally to be deplored that so few practitioners take the trouble to record their experiences or note in detail their patients’ histories, since it is only by such methods that light will be thrown upon the prevention of those everyday disabilities which are the principal cause of loss of working days. >St. Andrews, however, is fortunate in having, within its bound- aries, an institution staffed by general practitioners who are devoted to the study of common diseases. Through a system of continuous record keeping, research and interchange of ideas and experiences, they are endeavouring to investigate disease before the “ occurrence of any structural change in any organ of the body in the hope of providing a diagnosis at a period earlier than is possible by the methods now in use, and in order to obtain a knowledge of the circumstances that favour the onset of