THE HEALTH MASTER
By Samuel Hopkins Adams
Associate Fellow of the American Medical Association
Boston And New York Houghton Mifflin Company
1913
To George W. Goler, M.D., a type of the courageous, unselfish, and far-sighted health official, whom the enlightened and progressive city of Rochester, N. Y., hires to keep it well, on the “Chinese plan,” this book is inscribed, with the hope that it may, by exercising some influence in the hygienic education of the public, aid the work which he and his fellow guardians of the public health are so laboriously and devotedly performing throughout the nation.
Contents
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
To dogmatise on questions of medical practice is to invite controversy and tempt disaster. The highest wisdom of to-day may be completely refuted by to-morrow’s discovery. Therefore, for the simple principles of disease prevention and health protection which I have put into the mouth of my Health Master, I make no claim of finality. In support of them I maintain only that they represent the progressive specialized thought of modern medical science. So far as is practicable I have avoided questions upon which there is serious difference of belief among the authorities. Where it has been necessary to touch upon these, as, for example, in the chapter on methods of isolation in contagious diseases, a question which arises sooner or later in every household, I have advocated those measures which have the support of the best rational probability and statistical support.