ABSTRACT
Public health in the menu of definitions assembled by Baggott includes the science and art of preventing disease, promoting health and efficiency through sanitation, clean water, and education, the organisations of medical and nursing services for early diagnosis and preventive treatment of disease. Since 1997 Scottish Executive health pronouncements have reflected values and approaches associated with the New Public Health (NPH). Attention and expectation became focused on the doctor-led health care sector, boosted by new drug technologies and dominated by a glamorous hospital sector, while public health professionals languished in the drab municipal sector. Proponents of NPH do not separate themselves from the longer tradition of immunisation, food inspection, and public health medicine. This is worth considering in the light of the following: But for a verbal archaism or two this might serve as a current manifesto for the Public Health Alliance but in fact it comes from The Nationalisation of Health by Havelock Ellis.
