ABSTRACT
There are three chief medical services carried on entirely at the expense of the public rates and taxes, "poor-law, public health, and the school medical service". This chapter considers the medical side of the important sub divisions of public health work in their relation to private medical practice. Under the Local Government Act, the duty of enforcing vaccination devolves on the councils of counties and county boroughs, but it is unlikely that this will mean much greater assiduity in enforcing the law. Pathological work forms an important means of ascertaining the distribution and character of disease in a district, and enabling rational preventive measures to be taken. The total pathological work carried on in hospitals and elsewhere is work which local and central health authorities may legitimately carry on or subsidise from public funds. The supposed distinction between "public" and "personal" can scarcely be maintained in view of the present scope of public health administration.
