Henry Baird Favill, AB, MD, LL.D., 1860-1916, a ... - University Library

MEDICINE AND PUBLIC HEALTH 427
brought in many ways and by an elaboration of methods
now started in so many directions, to learn the conduct of
life.
In order fully to realize the possibilities in this direction,
it is necessary to inculcate a sound primary conception of
health. In the past, people in general have been, toward
health, in an attitude that is distinctly negative. The
motive actuating people, where they are conscious of any
motive at all, has been a desire to avoid illness. The trend
of humanity has been altogether toward remedies for malcondition.
It is unusual that pepple consider the matter at
all until attention is directed to it by some form of discomfort.
It has been assumed that health is automatic and
that no attention need be paid to it until some deviation
occurs. This is fundamentally erroneous. The more society
advances in what is called civilization and what is really
complexity of relationships, the less the checks and balances
of physical well-being operate automatically. The consequences
of complex life, more dense aggregation, more intricate
interrelationships, are for the most part not immediate,
but remote. It is not easy to trace to fundamental
cause many of the effects which present themselves as physical
perversions.
The future demands that people direct their attention
toward causes, and bring to bear upon themselves, with
reference to causes, principles of conduct. This implies
that desire to avoid sickness be translated into a determination
to be in the highest degree well, which involves
a scrutiny of the foundations of health and adoption of
methods of life in keeping with their preservation.
This constitutes in contradistinction to what I have
called a negative conception, an ideal of health which is
distinctly affirmative. It is to this end that intelligent
effort of people must be directed and along this path that
they may hope to be guided by medical thought. Great
as the need is in the public in general for such recast of