Ecology and Medicine

“All life is controlled by two great forces, heredity and environment, and ecology is the science dealing with the environment.” Ecology has generally been considered as the special concern of botanists and zoologists; at least they have been the ones who have most used the term as applying to a distinct department of their sciences; but obviously, from the definition, it is related to every science that touches life. Physicians have always recognized environment as of fundamental importance in all problems of medicine, and hence have unconsciously been ecologists, much like the man who, o n taking up in his later years the study of grammar, was astounded to learn that he had always been using it. Therefore we ought not to be surprised to find that the opening contribution in the newly established official publication of the Ecological Society of America is on “The Control of Pneumo nia and Influenza by the Weather,” and was written by a geographer rather than a physician. This deals with an analysis of deaths from pneumonia and influenza, as correlated with data on temperature and humidity for the same period. It has been pointed out by Greenberg that in a group of eastern A merican cities, the number of deaths from pneumonia has a direct relation to the outdoor temperature, and decreases systematically as the temperature rises. The same thing has been observed by Shaw in England with respect to influenza. Huntington also finds that the death rate from pneumonia and ...
Source: JAMA - Category: General Medicine Source Type: research