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Zusammenfassung Das Wissen über den Blutdruck sowie das Verhalten hinsichtlich Blutdruckmessungen (Messdichte) sind zwei wichtige Indikatoren für die bevölkerungsbezogene Definition der Probleme im Bereich der Herz-Kreislauf-Krankheiten.

Summary In 1981/82 the first representative health survey (SOMIPOPS “Socio-medical indicators for the population of Switzerland”) was conducted 1) to gain representative data on health status (perceived morbidity), use of health services, 2) to analyse the demand for health care, and 3) to develop reliable health and use indicators.

It is a regrettable fact that many physicians prescribe drugs either from habit or from hearsay. Even with the drugs prescribed many times daily some of their important actions are unknown or forgotten.Certainly it is not necessary for me to state that a knowledge of the absorption and elimination of drugs is required before they can be administered intelligently. The fact that a physician is prevented from overdrawing his mortality account by an indulgent Providence should not make us any the less eager to bring about an improvement in a condition so easily improved. The trouble is we do not study our materia medica enough. Many of us get our ideas of therapeutics from works on practice. This is sufficient to a degree only. The knowledge obtained from such a source can not replace the knowledge of the physiologic actions of drugs that should be the basis of our

Pneumonia is a self-limited disease and runs its course uninfluenced in any way by medicine. It can neither be aborted nor cut short by any known means at our command. Even under the most unfavorable circumstances it will terminate abruptly and naturally without a dose of medicine having been administered. So also under the favoring circumstances of good nursing and careful diet the experience of many physicians in different lands has shown that pneumonia runs its course in a definite time, aborting sometimes spontaneously on the third or fifth day, or continuing until the tenth or twelfth. We have then no specific treatment for pneumonia. The practitioner may bear in mind that the patient is more often damaged than helped by the promiscuous drugging which is still only too prevalent. In cases of moderate severity a purely expectant plan may be followed—keeping the bowels open, regulating the diet and, if