This book is another evidence of the growing popular interest in health topics. While written by an Englishman, it applies to conditions in the United States as well as in Great Britain. The author endeavors to demonstrate the necessity for an entire remodeling of the present system of medical service in the interest of the whole community, by showing that thousands of lives and millions of money can be saved every year if disease is attacked on scientific principles "instead of being dallied with as at present." Dr. Moore advocates a system of state medicine by which competent physicians are made officers of the state for the suppression of disease, as police officers are employed for the suppression of crime. The author has evidently a strong tendency toward state socialism. Great Britain is apparently farther advanced along this line than the United States, as is shown by existing British laws regarding invalidity insurance, employers' liability, care of the sick by the state, workingmen's insurance, etc. While one may not agree with all of the conclusions, the book is interesting and suggestive. Chapters on the follies of present public health service, the doctor and his patient in private practice and in state practice, the evils and abuse of hospital systems and the evolution of a national medical service contain the basic facts and theories from which the proposed system of the writer is developed. Evidently the advocates of public health reform in England have encountered the same opposition as that met in this country, as is shown by the comments of the author on the objection that such a plan would be an invasion of personal liberty. He says, "Let us next look at the matter from the point of view, so often called in evidence by opponents, of the sanctity of the home and the intrusion on it of an army of officials. This is an ancient bogey which was taken out of its cupboard, carefully dusted and filled with fresh straw to alarm the British workman and voter when free education was granted him for his children. He was then told that his hereditary castle was gone forever and that he would have no peace or quiet with his wife and family on account of the unwelcome and prying visits of the school attendance officer haling poor little Johnnie away to school as to some prison or torture chamber. Now is it so in fact, after a good many years of reign of the school board? Is this reign really a reign of terror? Is the school attendance officer an irksome person in constant attendance at the poor man's home? No; he is only a terror to those, and they are but a small percentage, to whom he ought to be a terror and to whom we would all wish him to be a terror, who would neglect their children in a wicked and criminal way. These officers, although they visit homes, have no more terrors for honest people than either the policeman or the gas-meter inspector. " In another chapter he says, "Under the new regime, medical treatment will be as free to everyone as is the school and education to-day and everyone must accept medical treatment in his own interest and that of the community just as he must to-day accept education for his child whether he wants it or not." Dr. Moore has presented an interesting argument for advanced constructive health legislation.
—JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 56 [1911]