Columbia University School of Public Health - Yearbook (New York, NY)

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1934 o 4'7's',r,.'a'1'5ft Pmzfznmban Smuiag Bwmu, Rgyz2vzafQj'12:e gfm f s?? 'x ---5565 PAN AMERICAN HEALTH ORGANIZATION woRl.D HEALTH ORGANIZATION-li--1 '7?' sz: 1'w:N1'Y-11-uno smart. N.w.. wAsHlNG'roN. D. c. zoos? U.S.A. CABLE ADDRESS: oFsANPAN IN RIP'-Y REHR T02 D Ll- April 1.957 TELEPHONE zzs-Hoo STATEMENT BY DOCTOR ABRAHAM HORWITZ, DIRECTOR OF THE PAN AMERICAN SANITARY BUREAU, REGIONAL OFFICE FOR THE AMERICAS OF THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION FOR YEARBOOK OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH AND ADMINISTRATIVE MEDICINE - 1967 Our subject is international health. Our theme, the mutual relationship between health care and development. Our environment is the Americas. The Hemisphere as a whole, and particularly the Latin American Coimtries, are going through a deep process of change that should progressively involve the whole structure of society. The aim is to improve conditions of life and contribute to progress and well-being Specific goals have been set for economic growth and social development Concerted efforts to reach them have shown the weaknesses in the orgamzatronal and admmistrative processes indispensable to prevent disease cure the sick and prolong hfe It has become apparent that health care 1S not a separate entity in a dynamic social order If influences and is bemg influenced by economic growth and total development Health becomes an end in itself for each individual and at the same time a means to foster welfare of commumties and larger aggregates of population Public health both as a philosophy and as a service needs to be adapted to the emerging situations m which the confluence of civilizations creates part1cular conditions for the application of modern science and techniques It will need to penetrate through research into the study of the relationship of the myriad of forces at the root of societies It should become truly multidisciplmary in 1ts approach to welfare and well bemg Joining efforts with the biological the behavioral and the economic sciences If we really want to shorten the gap between the technologically advanced and the developmg coimtries it will be imperative for the health workers to enlarge the scope of their objectives to look at health care beyond its immediate results sum to consider man as a biological unity a rational entity and a soc1al being Yo s sincerely, V7 X Abraham Ho t Direc X I 7 ' I , . . , I 7 n. ,... . .i I . 'IIS' -7 -.' -4 t V Z

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A MESSAGE TO OUR CLASS: THE ERADICATION CONCEPT IN COMMUNICABLE DISEASE PREVENTION Fred L. Soper, M. D., Dr. P. H. 1 Special Consultant,. Office of International Health, U. S. Public Health Service. In the early flush of bacteriology in the 19th century, workers glibly talked of disease eradication. In 1884, the Congress created the Bureau of Animal Industry to eradicate contagious bovine pleuropneumonia and to prevent the export of animal diseases from the United States. Pleuropneumonia was eradicated, but the problem of permanent exclusion, or prevention of reinfection, remained. The first attempt to eradicate a disease, as contrasted with efforts to eliminate from an individual country, was the Rockefeller Foundation-sponsored effort to eradicate yellow fever from the world. This effort failed because of the previously unrecognized jungle yellow fever from which reinfection can come. In recent decades much more has been done on the national elimina- tion of animal diseases than of human infections. The contrary is true in the international field, international health organizations are coordinating programs for the eradication of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, the urban vector of yellow fever, of malaria, of small- pox, and of yaws. The greater ease of excluding animal than human diseases is probably responsible for this difference in development. The present is a period when those working in animal disease pre- vention are recognizing the necessity of international collabora- tion and coordination of efforts. The United States participated financially and administratively in the elimination of foot-and-mouth disease from Mexico some years ago while the disease was far from its own frontier, in 1966, the Congress of the United States author- ized cooperation in the elimination of the screwworm from northern Mexico in order to establish a more economically defensible frontier between infested and clean areas at the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. But the regional and global animal disease eradication efforts are logging behind such efforts related to human diseases. At the same time, public health workers in the United States are searching for administrative means of coordinating disease prevention activities of cities, states, and counties in national elimination programs. The professional health administrator, working in the prevention of both human and animal diseases, is in the coming years going to become more and more involved in the development of national elimination programs and the coordination of these in true regional and global eradication efforts. II-Ionorary Member, American Veterinary Medical Association. Washington, D. C. 7 April 1967

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' ORGANISATION MONDIALE W O R L D H E A L T H K QQ ORGANIZATION QI V DE LA SANTE S Avenue Appia NZ? Avenue Appl: IZII GENEVA-SWITZERLAND 1111 GENEVE-SUISSE I'cIegr,: LNISANTE-Gcncxn Tel- 346061 Telex' 21335 Teligrx UNISANTE-Geneve I ply please refer no I' rc de ra Icr Ia rel' W 4 April 1967 Dear Dr. Birne, I have just seen your letter of 17 March, upon my return from a trip. Perhaps you can use the following. One of the major challenges and opportunities facing those individuals who have received their basic training in veterinary medicine is in the field of comparative medicine. I define this, somewhat arbitrarily, as the smdy by comparison of spontaneously occurring diseases in vertebrate animals other than man. The information derived from such studies provides useful leads in understanding analogous processes affecting human beings. Such leads can be exploited by designing experimental situations in which variables are limited as much as possible so that the results of experimental set-ups might gradually ' mbination of factors that determine a specific reveal the prime cause or co disease process. The main areas now being explored in studies of comparative medicine concern the problems of cancer and cardiovascular disease. lt is not difficult to see the extension of such an approach to rheumatoid diseases and other connective tissue disorders, and perhaps even to behavioural aberrations. Work in comparative medicine involves the application of advanced principles of epidemiology as well as of basic biological sciences, and cannot be performed effectively unless there is a thorough understanding of both clinical and highly technical components bearing on the specific diseases being studied. This is not an easy task, but it is an imperative necessity if veterinary ' ' bl' health of which it is capable. medicine i s to make the contribution to pu ic Sincerely yours, Martin M. Kaplan, V.M.D. Chief, Veterinary Public Health Division of Communicable Diseases Dr. H. Birne Chairman, Yearbook Committee Columbia University School of Public Health and Administrative Medicine 600 West 168th Street New York, N.Y. 10032