[Health promotion in the school--fiction or central responsibility of school medicine?].

The causes of the most common diseases are now well known. This knowledge makes it possible to prevent them. Child mortality has been drastically reduced during the present century due to the eradication of infectious diseases. This target was reached by means of general immunization programmes and health education of the entire population. Other diseases were eliminated by changes of nutrition habits (gout) and by active substitution of vitamins (rickets) or by administration of minerals (caries, goitre). Diseases that are responsible for man not attaining his genetic life-span can only be eradicated by changing the style of living. With transmission of modern medical experience it is practicable to promote health and to avoid diseases. It is therefore indispensable to organize early recognition of diseases in children and juveniles, to implement full immunization programmes and to promote health education programmes for children, parents and teachers. Health promotion programmes are only effective if they reach the young people of the entire population. This is only possible through the Public Health service. Health promotion in this sense is no longer a fiction but an all-time duty of school doctors. A basic prerequisite for this function is permanent postgraduate medical education of school doctors and constant cooperation between physicians and educationalists.