ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the circumstances of medical work in Switzerland. Hospitals are chiefly maintained by the Cantonal Governments, and the Zurich arrangements illustrate the best type of arrangements, which were made by a Cantonal Order dated October 1924. There are polyclinics for each special department of medicine in Zurich, which, while they are under the control of the municipality, are managed in the main by the medical staff and professors of the University. School hygiene on its medical side is not well developed in many parts of Switzerland, but in some large towns there are promising developments. The control of venereal diseases varies, as might be anticipated in view of the decentralisation of administration, in each canton, and even in each commune or municipality. Cantonal self-government has been associated with many interesting experiments in social insurance. There is much alcoholism in Switzerland. Very active temperance societies exist, and the Federal Government is at present searching for further means of control.
