Page:Wood - Foods of the Foreign-Born.djvu/13

 FOREWORD

doctor has referred to this medical age as having witnessed "the passing of pills and powders." Although the patent medicine advertisements in newspapers and magazines seem to belie the remark, yet the fact remains that physicians nowadays give less medicine to their patients than formerly and pay much more attention to hygiene, diet, and occupation, both as therapeutic agents in curing disease and as factors in maintaining the individual in the best of health and at a high level of working efficiency.

Of these personal and environmental factors affecting the hygiene of life and the physical efficiency of the individual, food ranks among the first. The physician, the public health nurse, the social worker, must deal at every turn with problems of diet. These present themselves in economic form when the income of a family is so low as to make adequate nourishment difficult, even with very careful selection of foods. The problem presents itself in a medical form in the treatment of many diseased conditions: diabetes, nephritis, tuberculosis, "malnutrition," constipation, etc.

Thus the dietitian has entered the area of medical and public health service as an aid to the physician and as an agent in the curing of disease and the maintenance of health. In this capacity the dietitian has entered the hospital, the clinic, and the homes of patients. Books have been written and courses are given for the training of dietitians for such service, but to a large extent the dietitian, the physician, public health nurse, and social vii