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2016 ; 60
(2
): 250-69
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Smashed by the National Health ? A Closer Look at the Demise of the Pioneer
Health Centre, Peckham
#MMPMID26971599
Conford P
Med Hist
2016[Apr]; 60
(2
): 250-69
PMID26971599
show ga
The Pioneer Health Centre, based in South London before and after the Second
World War, remains a source of interest for advocates of a positive approach to
health promotion in contrast with the treatment of those already ill. Its closure
in 1950 for lack of funds has been blamed on the then recently established
National Health Service, but this article argues that such an explanation is
over-simplified and ignores a number of other factors. The Centre had struggled
financially during the 1930s and tried to gain support from the Medical Research
Council. The Council appeared interested in the Centre before the war, but was
less sympathetic in the 1940s. Around the time of its closure and afterwards, the
Centre was also involved in negotiations with London County Council; these failed
because the Centre's directors would not accept the changes which the Council
would have needed to make. Unpublished documents reveal that the Centre's
directors were uncompromising and that their approach to the situation
antagonised their colleagues. Changes in medical science also worked against the
Centre. The success of sulphonamide drugs appeared to render preventive medicine
less significant, while the development of statistical techniques cast doubt on
the Centre's experimental methods. The Centre was at the heart of the nascent
organic farming movement, which opposed the rapid growth of chemical cultivation.
But what might be termed 'chemical triumphalism' was on the march in both
medicine and agriculture, and the Centre was out of tune with the mood of the
times.
|Biomedical Research/history
[MESH]
|Community Health Centers/*history/organization & administration
[MESH]
|Health Promotion/history
[MESH]
|History, 20th Century
[MESH]
|Humans
[MESH]
|London
[MESH]
|Preventive Health Services/*history/organization & administration
[MESH]