[Reflections on an anniversary: the Public Health School of Chile in its fiftieth anniversary]

This is the speech pronounced by Dr Abraham Horwitz, Emeritus Professor of the University of Chile and Honorary Director of PAHO, during the academic act that celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the Chilean Public Health School endowment. The school had a doctrinal and technical impact on Chilean health and decisively influenced the National Health Service creation. The majority of its founders were trained at the John Hopkins Public Health School, therefore naming this school "little Hopkins". Its creation was stimulated by the Chilean health profile of the forties. Chile had 5,273,000 inhabitants and a 28.2% of illiteracy. General mortality was 19.5%, infant mortality 18.1 and newborn mortality 73.3%. At the present time, forty years later, the figures are 14,000,000 inhabitants (85% in urban areas), less than 10% of illiteracy, a general mortality of 5.6%, infant mortality of 14.6, newborn mortality of 7.9% and a life expectancy of 72 and 75 years for men and women. Almost all labors are attended by professionals in institutional settings and only 5.6% of newborns have a low birth weight, one of the lowest figures in the world. To say that health in the Americas is in crisis and that population health needs are not satisfied is a dangerous generalization and Chilean health evolution seems to disprove this assertion. This does not mean that some reforms are needed that can be accomplished with the help of School of Public Health.