as well as more friendly than is the case in England . In France , the alliance of the Church with royalty makes the republican press distinctly hostile to the Church . Conclusions drawn in regard
to the relationship between the press and religious activities must differ when in one country this relationship is cordial and intimate, in another it is one of more or less detachment, and when
in another the relationship is conditioned by politicalaffiliations. The newspaper is intimately connected with all questions of public health and its effective aid in promoting it is everywhere
recognized . “ Printer's ink is saving more lives than any other single agency employed by modern health workers," was the statement made at the forty -third annual meeting of the Am
erican Public Health Association in 1915 . “ You may cure individuals of their ills in the privacy of a sickroom , but to cure the public of its ills you must get into the newspaper,” sums up the question . The press reports health congresses, announces
medical and surgical discoveries , publishes vital statistics, and hospital reports ; it is coming to reject advertisements of patent
medicines and of quack doctors;29 it carries on campaigns against flies, mosquitoes, rats, caterpillars, impure milk , contaminated drinking water , and exposure of food to dust; it opens a column for giving free advice on matters of health , — “ the health column
in newspapers is as indispensable as the joke column,” — and in every way it records the growing interest in all questions of private and public health . In its turn, the department of public health often takes the press into its confidence and thus secures
its co -operation in the presentation and circulation of informa tion bearing on the subject. In the consideration of public health , the press is not so much
divided against itself as it is divided with reference to the parts of the subject itself.
The press has a free hand in some of its
campaigns for public health , - flies, rats, mosquitoes , and cater pillars are not commercialized and campaigns against them are 29 Evidences of a recrudescence of patent medicine advertising were found in 1921, but there were also evidences of a recognition that the acceptance of such advertising was for the press a " penny -wise, pound foolish policy. ” More than one newspaper discovered that reputable adver tisers were repelled by patent medicine advertisements and that they placed
their advertising in newspapers that did not carry them .
