The business of the retail chemists was in like manner pursued as a source of profit. Economically considered all these establishments were on precisely the same footing as any other profit-making enterprise.
It was therefore necessary to transform them from instruments for filling capitalists’ purses into instruments for the service of the workers. The first step in this direction was the nationalisation of all such enterprises.
137. The Labour Duty of medical Workers.
The great prevalence of epidemic diseases and the need for prompt measures to prevent their spread led to the consideration of the possibility of a purposive, organised, and extensive campaign in this direction. Since the number of available workers was comparatively small, the urgent need for their scheduling and mobilisation in this campaign against epidemics became immediately and spontaneously apparent.
Thanks to these measures, thanks to the full utilisation of practically all the available medical strength from the most distinguished professors down to the first-year students and the surgeons’ assistants, it proved possible to get the better of the menacing epidemics — cholera and typhus.
Labour duty for medical workers has, however, a greater significance than that merely of “fireman’s work.” In association with the nationalisation of all curative enterprises, it is one of the germs of the organised social sanitation and social hygiene of the future.
138. Immediate Tasks in the Domain of public Hygiene.
Our work is rendered extremely difficult owing to the terrible dearth of many of the most ordinary essentials (proper food for use in the