Environmental factors bearing on medical education in the developing countries

Abstract

At the present time there are deep suspicions, and some evidence, that protein calorie malnutrition of the weanling, and the preschool child, may have one or more of three sets of consequences, each of which would be of importance in socioeconomic development. There two major reasons why a program of planned modernization must contain a substantial effort in health: to create the preconditions necessary to make high fertility disadvantageous , and to remove possible obstacles to successful primary school education. One of the possible relationships between protein calorie malnutrition and primary education has already been mentioned, but there are other much more definite effects on educability that are produced by having high density populations of preschool children in the homes.