The case for action : a survey of everyday life under modern industrial conditions, with special reference to the question of health / by Innes H. Pearse and G. Scott Williamson.

  • Pioneer Health Centre (Peckham, London, England)
Date:
[1931]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: The case for action : a survey of everyday life under modern industrial conditions, with special reference to the question of health / by Innes H. Pearse and G. Scott Williamson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    BY A. D. LINDSAY, C.B.E., LL.D. Master of Balliol College, Oxford Because all I have heard of the Peckham Health Centre has made me regard it as one of the most interesting of recent social experiments, I gladly accede to the request of the authors that I should write a few lines prefacing this book, though surely such good wine needs no bush. I think most readers will feel, when they have read the account of this experiment, that the principles in¬ spiring it are unmistakably right: that this invention in medical practice has the mark of all great discoveries —once made they are obvious. But there are certain features of this experiment which seem to me of special interest, to which perhaps I may draw attention. The late Dr. Bosanquet had a phrase for what he thought to be the principle which should inspire all sound social reform—‘the principle of social self- maintenance5. We are to help people to maintain them¬ selves in their social environment. An attractive principle if only one knew how to put it into practice! • • Vll