American Decades
"Preventing Disease in the Nation"
Letter
By: Joseph E. Ransdell
Date: August 4, 1931
Source: Ransdell, Joseph E. "Preventing Disease in the Nation." The New York Times, August 4, 1931.
About the Author: Joseph E. Ransdell, a U.S. senator from Louisiana, wrote the Ransdell Act, which transformed the National Hygienic Laboratory into the National Institute of Health. Ransdell was a proponent of publicly funded biomedical research, and he joined forces with scientists who also believed in the creation of an institute to supply such funding.
Introduction
The U.S. government has had a role in medical research since 1887. The first small institution was the Marine Hospital Institute (MHI), created to provide health care for merchant seamen. The physicians who worked there also screened arriving passengers for signs of contagious disease. Because infectious disease was perhaps the most...
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1930's Medicine and Health Primary Sources
- Opinions on Mental Health
- Radio Address on a Program of Assistance for the Crippled
- "Preventing Disease in the Nation"
- "Children Hurt at Work"
- The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment
- Morale: The Mental Hygiene of Unemployment
- "Dear Mr. Hopkins"
- Prenatal Care for Rural Poor
- Consumer Protection Expands
- "Surgery Used on the Soul-Sick; Relief of Obsessions is Reported"
- March of Dimes Poster
- Shadow on the Land
- "Dust"
- Alcoholics Anonymous
- "Hot Lunches for a Million School Children"
- Copyright Page
- Acknowledgments
