Vol. 71, 1915 - The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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34 THE CHARLOTTE MEDICAL JOURNAL.
tioners of general medicine, are other
things being equal as to education, professional
and general, more likely to
develop into capable and efficient practical
public health officers. Discretion,
tact, capacity to feel the community pulse
and determine its notations, the ability
to weigh and measure local sentiment
and engage it for useful helpful purpose
these and other acquirements are not
hardly to be learned in schools other than
those of practical life, and the contact
and relations of some years existing between
the practising physician and the
people he works among and upon, afiford
him educational opportunities denied the
recent graduate from even the best
schools of our science and art. With a
due consideration of all
the evailable data
at hand, and the recognition of the fact
that if the work of local county health
officers now in the field, shows the anticipated
results, there will each year be a
demand for others to engage in the practice
of county and municipal pviblic health
Avork, the North Carolina State Board of
Health, has through its able Secretary,
Dr. W. S. Rankin, arranged the following
tentative plan for the giving of a course
of practical training which will require
about six or seven months to complete.
This course, when taken by a physician
who has had previous training in the
practice of medicine should fit him, if
otherwise capable, to engage as a wholetime
health officer in any community,
with a well defined knowledge of what
he is to do, how to go about it, what results
to expect—all being based on a careful
study of the state system with which
the bureau of vital statistics, is referred
to proper references on vital statistics
and is required to study and criticise the
vital statistics table appearing in various
reports.
Popular sanitary education, three
weeks. During this course the apprentice
is required to prepare articles for the
bulletin and press service, to study exhibits,
slides and lanterns, and to act as
assistant to the bureau chief.
Tuberculosis, four weeks. During this
time the apprentice assists the state sanitarium
and in bureau for tuberculosis is
assigned the proper reading and is given
quizzes upon it.
Laboratory, four weeks. During this
time the apprentice will do the routine
examinations of the state laboratory and
be quizzed on the interpretation of water
analysis and upon epidemilogical procedure.
County health work, six weeks. During
this time the apprentice will serve as
assistant to an efficient county health
officer and will be sent to 'see special
phases of county health work in different
counties.
On the completion of this six or seven
months practical course, a certificate of
proficiency in public health work signed
by the president and executive staff of
the board will be given the apprentice.
J. H. W.
PASTEUR'S DREAM.
Pasteur's idea of the possibility of effecting
the destruction of the entire species
of any disease-producing microbe
seems to become more difficult of execution
the more we learn of the biology of
micro-organisms-. Formerly it appeared
that if we could corral all suffers from
a given infectious malady, and maintain
effective quarantine, that their recovery
or death would sweep it from the face of
the earth. But we have since learned that
many microbes, such as the typhoid bacillus,
the pneuniococcus, and even the cholera
spirillum, lurk in the bodies of "carriers"
for indefinite periods ; that the tubercle
bacillus, the bacillus of bubonic
plague, the diphtheria organism, and
he is to cooperate, and an acquired first
hand understanding of public health
work. The course is as follows ;
State health administration or state many others frequently infect other animals
than ourselves. Even organisms of-
health laws and policies, four weeks.
During this course the apprentice is assistant
to the executive officer of the and malignant oedema bacilli, naturally
ten parasitic on man, such as the tetanus
board, answers as much of the official derive sustenance from vegetable matter,
literature as he can, and is referred to so that were man to attempt the destruction
in question by such methods of elim-
and quizzed upon the proper literature.
Vital statistics, four weeks.
inating all possible
During
sources of seed, the
this time the apprentice is given
eventual result would probably leave a
actual
experience in every
single
phase of the work human standing stark in the midst
of
of a world wide v^ahara, and even his continuation
might depend upon the traditional
inability to "see ourselves as others
see us," and Burns did not have a microscope
!
DO FLIES TRAVEL.
What is
the probable flight of the common
house fly? We read in The A. M. A.
Journal, of December ."ith, 101-i, of experiments
made at Cambridge, England,