those to whom the task of carry-ing out these health programs is entrusted. The politics of human health is rooted in the soil of biology, and rises with its trunks and branches to the sky of psyche and society; while the politics of animal health is sunk in the soil of veterinary science, and never aspires above the dust.

Second — administrative orga-nization is necessary for the conduct of the affairs of health. All the health services, classified in the light of the science of health into general programs by the health specialists, and directed to the various parts of the people according to age, sex, and educational, economic, and health level, must be centralized in the Ministry of Health, so that this Ministry becomes their final advisory and administrative authority — while these various tasks are distributed, within the frame of the Ministry itself, in a decentralized arrangement, according to the logic of science and to local capacities.

Hence it is expected of the Ministry of Health alone to unify and coordinate the various international and local efforts, governmental and inde-pendent, with which the country teems — without guidance, and without any overseeing, clear-sighted direction.

Third — executive firmness is necessary for the conduct of the affairs of health. The Ministry of Health, once it has planned its programs and organized its administration in the light of the science of health, must consider itself, in fact, a ministry of defense. For just as the military ministry of defense against the human enemy is compelled to conduct its affairs with rigor and firmness, so the health ministry of defense against the microbial enemy must see itself compelled to conduct its affairs with the same rigor and the same firmness. The operations of exe-cution according to the plan laid down must be neither obstructed nor deflected by any outside considerations foreign to the logic of health. Thus, for example, in the distribution of fellowships for specialization abroad or at home, nothing but competence may be weighed; and in the distribution of the health services among the districts and provinces, nothing may be considered but local need, curative and preventive, as the science of health and statistics have shown it.

It is clear from the foregoing that the aversion between politics and health is only an apparent aversion; that reality attests to a bond between them so close that it makes the politics of health in Lebanon healthy if it rests upon three pillars — science, admin-istrative organization, and execu-tive firmness — and makes it sick if it rests, on the contrary, upon ignorant, haphazard floundering, upon administrative chaos, and upon executive flabbiness.

Yes — thus can the politics of

health in Lebanon be set right; and thus too, little by little, can the health of politics in Lebanon be set right as well.

Dr. Zaki Shakhashiri Member of the Department of Hygiene of the American Medical Institute and President of the Lebanese Public Health Association