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The wider environment and its influence

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Child Health in a Changing Environment

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Abstract

The influence of environment on health has been recognised ever since the early beginnings of medical knowledge. Environment here refers to all the influences and factors that affect the well-being of an individual ‖ the physical surrounding, as well as the biological, socio-cultural and economic. Adaptation to the environment is the fundamental process in biology. Animal species have undergone evolution, and in many cases extinction, as a result of gene-environment interaction. In the case of man, however, the skills to shape the environment have developed so that instead of the environment shaping the genetic destiny of man he is able to alter the environment to suit his needs. Many of the environmental changes are desirable and planned, e.g, housing, water, sanitation. Others, including pollution and urbanisation, are accidental and unplanned and others such as nuclear fission may yet prove to be catastrophic.

Whoever wishes to investigate medicine properly, should proceed thus: in the first place to consider the seasons of the year, and what effects each of them produces… Then the winds, the hot and the cold, especially such as are common to all countries, and then such as are peculiar to each locality… and concerning the waters which the inhabitants [of a city] use, whether they be marshy and soft or hard, and running from elevated and rocky situations and then if saltish and unfit for cooking; and the ground, whether it be naked and deficient in water, or wooded and well-watered and whether it lies in a hollow, confined situation, or is elevated and cold; and the mode in which the inhabitants live, and what are their pursuits, whether they are fond of drinking and eating to excess, and given to indolence, or are fond of exercise and labour, and not given to excess in eating and drinking.

The Genuine Works of Hippocrates. Francis Adams (1849) Vol. 1, p. 190

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  1. G J Ebrahim
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© 1982 World Health Organisation

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Ebrahim, G.J. (1982). The wider environment and its influence. In: Child Health in a Changing Environment. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17031-9_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17031-9_4

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-333-34258-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-349-17031-9

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