Rural Health

Surgeon General Hugh Smith Gumming of the U. S. Public Health Service last week deplored the fact that "over 76% of the rural population of the U. S. is as yet unprovided with official local health service which approaches adequacy." Smartly he chided county officials: "As a consequence of this deficiency, there is a sacrifice of the health and lives and material resources of many persons every year, a sacrifice which is needless because preventable, and preventable by measures readily within our means and demonstrated to be in the highest sense economical. The situation is practical and urgent. It should be dealt with cogently, constructively and promptly."

So far as his limited personnel permits, Surgeon General Gumming is willing to send experts to study the health requirements of typical country districts and to demonstrate how local public health services can be operated. Want ads in the current journals of the American Public Health Association and of the American Medical Association indicate that men skilled in public health are willing to work for from $4,000 to $6,000 a year. A Montana community of 3,000 offers $600 a year for part-time work* and expects to get a capable man.

*Rural physicians earn on the average $3 284 a year.

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