The Public Health Laboratory

Abstract

AN organised laboratory for the practical instruction of students of hygiene is a comparatively novel creation, the demand for which has principally arisen in connection with the various diplomas in Public Health (D.P.H.), which are now eagerly sought after by those of the younger generation of medical men who contemplate the possibility of becoming at some future time candidates for appointments as medical officers of health. Probably there are many persons who, whilst having a general acquaintance with the studies which are pursued in ordinary scientific institutions, are yet altogether ignorant of what is being done in these public health laboratories, which have grown up within recent years. A glance at the table of contents in the work before us will at once reveal what a wide and varied field this subject of public health is made to cover, including as it does the hygienic analysis of air and water, the examination of food (milk, butter, cheese, corn, bread, meat, alcoholic beverages, mustard, pepper, sugar, coffee, chocolate, tea, and tinned provisions), together with the “methods employed in bacteriological research, with special reference to the examination of air, water, and food.” That this is a very comprehensive programme will be admitted by all, whilst it is equally patent to the initiated that it is one which it must be extremely difficult for a single teacher to conscientiously undertake, involving, as it does, an adequate knowledge of the most miscellaneous subjects. Inasmuch, however, as the ground covered is mainly of a chemical nature, it is obvious that the methods of work prescribed must be such as shall recommend themselves to chemists. In this connection it is interesting to note that the student is supposed to present himself at the public health laboratory without any previous knowledge of practical chemistry, at any rate as far as quantitative methods are concerned. Thus he has even to be initiated into the mysteries of such simple contrivances as the Bunsen burner, the pipe-clay triangle, and even the homely pestle and mortar, articles with which we should have supposed that most Board School children of the higher standards were now acquainted.

Public Health Laboratory Work.

By Henry R. Kenwood, including Methods employed in Bacteriological Research, with Special Reference to the Examination of Air, Water, and Food, contributed by Robert Boyce, M.B. Crown 8vo. 491 pages. (London: H. K. Lewis, 1893.)