Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1922-06-09
Address OF DR.. VIM. T. Pratt.


Service League on May End, 1922:
The Social Service League to be a
real service. from a public health stand
point. must work to accomplish one or
more of four objects;
First-Educate the public in prevention
of diseases.
Second-Control of communicable dis
eases.
Third-Control of soil pollution.
Fourth-Child welfare work, including
medical inspection of school children.
The greatest of these is the first-Edu-
cation of the public. which is so closely
woven with the second-Control of COM
municable diseases, that they are almost
inseparable.
To tell truth is an education, but to
show truth is a greater education. The
Social Service does both. Its workers carry
comfort, cheer, food and clothing to the
bedside of our tuberculosis sufferers, teach
ing them how to live and regain their
health, but they do a greater service to
that household and community when they
show how to prevent its spread to others
educating the public in their homes. Aid
ing in the control of communicable dis
ease at one time believed to be hopeless,
but now just as surely on the decrease as
smallpox and typhoid fever are fast APP
preaching extinction.
Because of these two detectives -edu-
cation to prevent and actual control of
tuberculosis, the Social Service League
deserves a place in public esteem, de-
serves the public's endorsement and finan-
cial support.
While the health department has to do
with unwholesome conditions and disease,
endangering the public at large. the So
cial Service League had to do with social
ignorance and error in their beginning
with the intricacies and the secrecies of
poverty. disease and crime, to deal with
the relief, conduct and sociologic educa-
ton of women and children in the privacy
of their own homes.
For these and many other reasons the
work of the Social Service worker should
be conducted by the women.
That this may be done successfully the
worker should have the moral and mate
rial support of every one in the prosecu-
ton Of her work. She should be given
complete authority for her every act, and
be held responsible for results as surely as
is the health officer or fire chief.
She should have charge of all relief
funds. whether they come from private or
public sources.
She should direct and completely control
all public nursing prenatal care, care and
feeding of infants, humane treatment OF
children. sanitation in the home, recrea-
ton, character training, truancy, juvenile
delinquency, instruction in hygiene, social
diseases, prevention of tuberculosis. school
health inspection and matters of social
welfare for schools.
All these things, and many more. must
be taught by the worker in the homes in
which she labors. and this teaching to be
of orderly habits on the part of the in.
mates of these unfortunate homes.
So we find our Social Service Leagu,
engaged in at least three of the publi
health fields
Education of the public in preventive
medicine
Control of communicable diseases,
Child welfare work. and indeed tn rough
its teaching sanitation in the homes greatly
aiding in the fourth. Control of soil pullu
ton.
That there shall be no conflict between
the Health Department and the Social
Service League the former must be placed
in the division of public safety and the
latter in the division of public welfare.
The health and welfare field so largely
envelopes and guards the lives and indus
tries of men, ever widening and ever grow
ing in the confidence of the people. has
well proved its worth. step by step it has
developed upon public sentiment. has
grown to meet the needs at hand.
That it may receive the necessary fnan.
cial and sympathetic support, the founda-
ton work of the Social Service League
should be the teaching of mental Orderli-
ness or social character qualities in the
home as the most effective method for the
improvement and protection Of children
and the prevention of poverty. disease
and crime.