Superficial health Knowledge
It has been said that “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” It is; but only when one accepts a little knowledge as the whole, or does not apply that knowledge rationally. Today almost everyone has at least a smattering of in forma- tion regarding disease and its cause, and of health and its pres¬ervation. One cannot be even a reader of newspapers without becoming exposed to the “dangerous contagion” of a little knowledge regarding health and disease.
True, no one Mould take away this knowledge from even the most ignorant layman. The best way to lower the hazard of a dangerously small dose of knowledge is to increase the dose —to give more knowledge. Enlightenment has brought us far from the pitiful plight of people of the Middle Ages. But special knowledge has been too confined to select classes. The phenomena of birth, life and death are universal among all classes. Health and disease are not special states for special people or grades or castes of peojile: knowledge regarding them does not belong to a select few. Through an absence of knowledge diseases come to one and all alike, and death eventually strikes. So all are entitled to knowledge that will aid them in combating disease and postponing death. Hence everyone to some degree should be able to be his own physician, for prevention or correction of abnormal states of health and ill health. Education along health lines, developing a health consciousness and learning the simple rules of health and hygiene should enable one to get the best out of life.
When the causes of ill health are known, that knowledge itself should make of an individual a fairly competent physi¬cian, one capable of bringing about a radical improvement in his own health. For when the causes are known they can be avoided and their avoidance will in itself undo much of the health damage they have created.
Some of the damage produced by these causes has or may have been so pronounced that further assistance is necessary in order to restore normal or previous conditions, or conditions that permit life to continue and to be not only bearable butsenjoyable. Energy may have become exhausted, organs may have all but ceased functioning or may have developed an ab¬normal functioning, vitality may have been heavily drawn upon or it may be prevented from manifesting itself save for the maintenance merely of life itself. Accidents, special strains and stresses, infections may have produced special ef¬fects. In some of these conditions removal or avoidance of the cause or causes may not be sufficient to restore previous states. Nature may need assistance. Whenever a cure is brought about, whenever the health is improved to even the slightest extent, it is Nature that accomplishes the change. But Nature often requires aid.