The Health Adviser In The Community

From the essay, 'Eugenics And Other Evils', by G.K.Chesterton, 1922.

'..........in the composite book which Mr. Wells edited and called 'The Great State' (1912). He said the doctor should no longer be a mere plasterer of paltry maladies, but should be, in his own words, 'the health adviser of the community'. The same can be expressed with even more point and simplicity in the proverb that prevention is better than cure. Commenting on this, I said that it amounted to treating all people as if they were ill. This the writer admitted to be true, only adding that everyone is ill. To which I rejoin that if everyone is ill, the health adviser is ill too, and therefore cannot know how to cure that minimum of illness. This is the fundamental fallacy in the whole business of preventive medicine. Prevention is not better than cure. Cutting off a man's head is not better than curing his headache: it is not even better than failing to cure it.  And it is the same if a man is in revolt, even a morbid revolt. Taking the heart out of him by slavery is not better than cure; prevention is even worse than the disease. Prevention means being an invalid for life, with the extra exasperation of being quite well.