Ways to Community Health Education

momentarily appear in these pages. The art of the author was surely tempered by design. Nor do the essays merely entertain. Of medicine and medical schools, of libraries and of books and their makers, many things are said; some strangely prophetic, some with a sly dig at the all-too-complacent, but many more based on what the author regarded as worthier than a shibboleth, on common sense. The seven essays presented under the general title "The Medical Career" and the nine "Biographical Sketches," reveal Doctor Cushing in many moods, each genuinely his own. This book was worth waiting for. It meets a need in public health literature which has long existed and which has grown more urgent in recent years. To write authoritatively on one of the newest developments in the relatively new field of public health is no simple task, but it is one for which the author is eminently qualified. Few public health authorities have tackled so many current public health administrative problems throughout the United States. Add this experience, his objectivity, keen discernment, and sympathetic understanding, and the usefulness of this book is explained. His collaborators are also well known for their many years on the firing line of day-by-day health education. The book was bound to be practical. The Commonwealth Fund has once more made an important contribution to the Nation's current public health needs. This is no lengthy, academic lecture on how to educate the public in health. It is not a pronouncement from the Oracle showing the one path of virtue. True to its title, it sets forth several of the best ways now being used to improve the health behavior of our people. It shows why health behavior needs improvement and gives convincing reasons why the modern health department should permeate its entire program with health education rather than rely solely upon imperialistic law enforcement. It is a brief, but comprehensive , worker's manual on health education of the public, as valuable to the health educator connected with the health department or the voluntary health agency, as is the pharmacopeia to the physician. It is direct, simple, unprovincial, well organized, and at times inspired. Practical examples for conducting a tuberculosis, diphtheria, or syphilis campaign are well selected and in sufficient detail. A chasm of unfamiliarity often exists between community health education and other forms of education. This book leaves one with the feeling that …