Lord Horder (1938) health and a Day ISBN 0 574 995 6
The Doctor and the Public Happiness
Address to Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh 1936
It is somtimes said that one of the greatest advances made in modern medicine is the recognition of the importance of the psychological factor in the patient's disease & his treatment.
Some folk speak of this as if it were a new discovery. Whereas it is as old as Hippocrates, was well known to Celsus & Galen, and was stressed by Sydenham and Boerhaave.
A healthy nation tends to be happy, and a happy nation tends to be healthy.
We live longer,and more healthily, than we ever did. But that is not everything.....surely the problem is how to live more happily? There is the Ministry of Health & The Department Of Health, surely, in the long view, this should be a Ministry & Department of Publtc Happpiness? Let me state ...the essentials of public happiness.
1 Enough of the right food in the belly, 2. Easy access to the fresh air, 3. Shelter, but shelter at a rent which leaves something to buy food with, 4. Leisure for play, 5. Tranquility, and 6. A chance for all of us before birth.
Lord Horder