58
GERALD L. YOUNG
their cities are still creating health hazards of a difficult to defeat
psychiatric nature. Jenner’s discoveries in 1798 may have set us on the
road to the defeat of smallpox but we have yet to overcome the
problems of cancer and heart disease associated with concentrations of
cadmium in urban smog.
The environmental basis for many of our present health problems has
led to the renaming of many departments of public health as departments of environmental health. The relationship of man to his environment in terms of health and disease remains a very real problem and
deserves more than this brief mention here. Fortunately, the reader may
be referred to a number of excellent references available on the ecological approach to human health. This is a literature that has developed
rapidly in the past decade or so: Corwin (1949), May (1958), Francis
(1959), E. S. Rogers (1960, 1962), Stainbrook (1961), Friedlander (1961),
Follis (1962), Shannon (1962), Lee (1964, 1965), H i d e (1965), Hoyman
(1965), Gordon (1966), Kartman (1967), Stevens (1967), F. B. Rogers
(1967), Rosen (1967), Sargent (1969) and Kilbourne and Smillie (1969).
111. THE PRESENT SITUATION IN HUMAN ECOLOGY
An attempt has been made, for every discipline with interest in the
ecological approach, to bring the situation up to date, to emphasize the
present outlook in each case. This section, therefore, needs to be only a
tight summing up in an overall perspective.
The present situation in human ecology is, then, best described
simply: it is a fragmented field, far from interdisciplinary, though many
of the concepts are shared. Too few of the students in the various
disciplines of human ecology benefit from the work and observations of
similarly oriented scholars in other disciplines. Advancements of mutual
benefit are too seldom recognized; bibliographies (as indicators of
sources) reflect the fact that most human ecologists are strongly
discipline-oriented, and that they do not take advantage of the full
range of ecological materials available in the literature. There is a
tendency in the social sciences to recognize a debt to biology, particularly for basic definitions, but there the interdependence too often ends.
References from the social sciences are seldom used by biological
ecologists.
In some disciplines (e.g. psychology) there is very little evidence that
ecological literature in other disciplines is ewer looked at; the result is in
several instances redundancy and confusion in terminology. Workers in
some disciplines, particularly sociology, find it difficult to recognize
human ecology as a transcendental concept, as one that interpenetrates
with other fields of study. As with most generalities, there are of course
GERALD L. YOUNG
their cities are still creating health hazards of a difficult to defeat
psychiatric nature. Jenner’s discoveries in 1798 may have set us on the
road to the defeat of smallpox but we have yet to overcome the
problems of cancer and heart disease associated with concentrations of
cadmium in urban smog.
The environmental basis for many of our present health problems has
led to the renaming of many departments of public health as departments of environmental health. The relationship of man to his environment in terms of health and disease remains a very real problem and
deserves more than this brief mention here. Fortunately, the reader may
be referred to a number of excellent references available on the ecological approach to human health. This is a literature that has developed
rapidly in the past decade or so: Corwin (1949), May (1958), Francis
(1959), E. S. Rogers (1960, 1962), Stainbrook (1961), Friedlander (1961),
Follis (1962), Shannon (1962), Lee (1964, 1965), H i d e (1965), Hoyman
(1965), Gordon (1966), Kartman (1967), Stevens (1967), F. B. Rogers
(1967), Rosen (1967), Sargent (1969) and Kilbourne and Smillie (1969).
111. THE PRESENT SITUATION IN HUMAN ECOLOGY
An attempt has been made, for every discipline with interest in the
ecological approach, to bring the situation up to date, to emphasize the
present outlook in each case. This section, therefore, needs to be only a
tight summing up in an overall perspective.
The present situation in human ecology is, then, best described
simply: it is a fragmented field, far from interdisciplinary, though many
of the concepts are shared. Too few of the students in the various
disciplines of human ecology benefit from the work and observations of
similarly oriented scholars in other disciplines. Advancements of mutual
benefit are too seldom recognized; bibliographies (as indicators of
sources) reflect the fact that most human ecologists are strongly
discipline-oriented, and that they do not take advantage of the full
range of ecological materials available in the literature. There is a
tendency in the social sciences to recognize a debt to biology, particularly for basic definitions, but there the interdependence too often ends.
References from the social sciences are seldom used by biological
ecologists.
In some disciplines (e.g. psychology) there is very little evidence that
ecological literature in other disciplines is ewer looked at; the result is in
several instances redundancy and confusion in terminology. Workers in
some disciplines, particularly sociology, find it difficult to recognize
human ecology as a transcendental concept, as one that interpenetrates
with other fields of study. As with most generalities, there are of course