When in October, 1948, the University of St.
Andrews inaugurated a Student Health Service, I was
one of the two Medical Officers appointed. My duties
lie in that part of the University situated in Dundee.
Since then it has been my practice to submit
to the University authorities an annual report of the
work and activities of my side of the Student Health
Service during the preceding academic year. The idea
occurred to me, I think, while working on the report
for the year 1950 -51, that albeit in a very small and
modest way, these annual reports were possibly
contributing a little to the sum of knowledge in the
social aspects of medicine.
Over each period of one year a small group of
people had been studied in health and in sickness.
Certain findings at medical examination during
health or at medical attendance in illness had been
recorded. If no unjustifiable conclusions were
attempted, the facts recorded might at least be of
interest if not of value. At some later date was
born the idea that in the facts recorded there might
be the material for a thesis in the subject of Social
Medicine. Since then a good deal of my spare time has
been devoted to the preparation of the thesis now
presented.
At an early stage it was appreciated that my own
annual reports dealt with too few students and were
themselves too limited in scope to give a sufficiently
representative picture of all that is now implied
in the term "student health" and that only by
drawing on the much wider experience in universities
elsewhere could my own material be set in correct
perspective.
The aim then became a thesis covering the whole
field of student health study in this country,
reviewing the work done in the subject to date and
comparing my own findings and standards with those
obtained by my colleagues in other universities in
Britain and in Northern Ireland. Even that aim had
to be modified when it was found that several volumes
would be required to deal adequately with every aspect
of the subject.
In its final form the thesis became an attempt
to consider in some detail certain of the main features
of the work of university health services in this
country, to review the standards of health and sickness
that are now emerging, and to evaluate my own findings
in this small university in the light of these
standards. It is fully appreciated that a subject
such as "Tuberculosis in Students" dealt with in
one section here, has in it the material for an entire
thesis to itself. The restriction was imposed here
in order to preserve something of the original intention
which
which was to give a general review of student health
work.
The thesis is presented in two parts. In the
first, some of the main features of student health work
are discussed and my own findings set against those
obtained by colleagues working in other universities.
Certain opinions expressed are my own and would not
necessarily be endorsed by the Student Health Committee
or by the Court of this university.
The second part consists of the actual annual
reports I have submitted to the University Court
during the four years I have worked as one of their
Medical Officers. These reports, although containing
certain personal views which on some points have varied
or undergone modification as experience was acquired,
present the factual data on which were based the various
comparisons and conclusions set down in the first part
of the thesis. For that reason if for no other, it was
felt desirable to include these reports as an integral
part of the thesis. Attention is directed particularly
to the report for the year 1951-52 which on some
points summarises the experience of four years' work
in this university.
I trust that in the title of the thesis, the use
of the word "indices" is not misleading. In conditions
like clinical, pulmonary tuberculosis, it is probably
true to state that there is now an accepted figure
which represents with some accuracy the expected
incidence/
incidence in university students. But more frequently
I have used figures for their descriptive value only
and no precise statistical significance is claimed
for them.
