Report of the Health Survey and Development Committee Vol.II (Recommendations)

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.