Abstract:
A. study of Volume I of our'report #cannot fail to reveal the
extent and intensity of the dark shadows in the health picture of the
country. It is not for us to apportion responsibility for the somber
_ realities which face us today. It is with the future that we are condemned
and i f the picture is to be substantially altered for the better
with the least possible delay, a nation-wide interest milst be aroused
and the irresistible forces of an awakened public opinion arrayed in
the war against disease. Only a vivid realization of the grievous
^handicap which is today regarding the country’s progress can help to
-mobilize an all-out -effort ih. this campaign p-nd infuse into it a
•driving force which will gather and not lose momentum as time goes
-on. If it were possible to evaluate the loss, which this country
.annually 'suffers through the avoidable waste of valuable human
material and the lowering of human efficiency through mal-nutrition
-and preventible morbidity, we feel that the result would.be so startling
that the whole country would be arotised and would not rest
'until ft radical change had been brought about.
We refer on page 35 of this part of our report to an estimate
which has been made of the economic loss attributable to a single
-disease—malaria. Admitting that such assessments can lay no claim
to mathematical exactitude, the figures, which come from an unquestionably
authoritative source, even if approximately correct,
; are sufficiently' arresting to demand something more than passing
notice or academic interest.
