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Wednesday 13 July 2011

We've known this for ages

Arnold Bennett - from Wikipedia


Of course the public health has improved. We live longer, and apart from specific diseases, we probably suffer less. But this improvement is due not to the curative art of medicine; it is due to the application of the rules of common sense to laws and bye-laws having reference to hygiene; it is due, also, in some degree, to the increase in comfort among the masses of the people, better feeding, better housing, better education, better care of infants, more nursing, and special methods dealing with what are called 'occupational diseases'.

Arnold Bennett - The Savour of Life - published in 1928

4 comments:

Mark Wadsworth said...

Probably true, all those things might explain 90% of longer life spans etc but doctors routinely do the most amazing things nowadays which were unheard of a few decades ago.

A K Haart said...

I'd prefers to say that medical and surgical research achieves amazing things and doctors and surgeons apply them.

Demetrius said...

my maternal grannie was born in Hanley in 1876, nine years younger than him. She loved his books, as I did when I came to read them.

A K Haart said...

D - yes, a fine writer. You can get his books on Kindle, many of them free.