bear even the whole expense of such a health official.
Community health is often intrusted to the town fathers or a district
board with little interest in the matter; on the other hand, the agent
of a State board is not always a local resident, and is liable to
overlook local conditions. It is desirable that the health official be
an individual of good training, familiar with the locality, and with
ample authority, for in this way only can safety be reasonably secure.

It is by no means impracticable to give a local physician the
necessary official authority. He is equipped with information and
skilled by experience to know bad conditions when he sees them and to
appreciate their seriousness. Whether or not a physician is the
official health protector of the community, a physician there should
be who can be reached readily by those who need him, and who should be
required to produce a certificate of thorough training in both
medicine and surgery. If such a medical practitioner does not
establish himself in the district voluntarily, the community might
well afford to employ such a physician on a salary and make him
responsible for the health of all. As civilization advances it will
become increasingly the custom in the country as well as in the city
to employ a physician to keep one's general health good, as now one
employs a dentist to examine and preserve the teeth. Medical practice
must continually become more preventive and less remedial. It may seem
as if it were an unwarranted expansion of the social functions of a
community that it should care for the health of individuals, but as
the interdependence of individuals becomes increasingly understood,
the community may be expected to extend its care for its own welfare.

154. =The Village Nurse.=--Alongside the physician belongs the village
or rural nurse. Already there are many communities that are becoming
accustomed to such a functionary, who visits the schools, examines the
children, prescribes for their small ailments or recommends a visit to
the physician, and who stands ready to perform the duties of a trained
nurse at the bedside of any sufferer. The support of such a nurse is
usually maintained by voluntary subscription, but there seems to be no
good reason why she should not be appointed and paid by the organized
community as a local official. She is as much needed as a
road-surveyor, surely as valuable as hog-reeve or pound-keeper. It is
a valid social pr