AN OUNCE OF PREVENTION IS WORTH A POUND OF CURE
“The Ambulance Down in the Valley.”
‘ IT was a dangerous cliff, as they freely confessed,
Though to walk near its crest was so pleasant,
But over its terrible edge there had slipped,
A duke and full many a peasant. So the people said something would have to be done,
But their projects did not at all tally.
Some said, “Put a fence around the edge of the cliff,”
Some, “An ambulance down in the valley.”But the cry for the ambulance carried the day,
For it spread through the neighboring city,
A fence may be useful or not, it is true,
But each heart became moved with pity,For those who slipped over that dangerous cliff;
And the dwellers on highway and alley
Gave pounds and gave pence not to put up a fence,
But an ambulance down in the valley.Then an old sage remarked, “it’s a marvel to me
That people give far more attention
To repairing the results than to stopping the cause,
When they’d much better aim at prevention.“Let us stop at its source all this hurt,” cried he.
“Come, neighbors and friends, let us rally.
If the cliff we will fence, we might almost dispense
With the ambulance down in the valley.
There was a poem written many years ago by Joseph Malens, entitled “An Ambulance Down in the Valley.” It talks about a town that had once engaged in a very bitter debate about whether the best way to deal with the problem they had of people falling off this cliff high above the city was to raise funds to build a fence at the top of the cliff, or to continue to raise funds to park an ambulance down in the valley that was very efficiently hauling people off to the hospital. A lot of the townspeople said, “Look, we’ve always had an ambulance there and it’s worked very well. Why should we raise more funds to build a fence?” But finally common sense hit. Someone stood up and said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” and the old man’s logic won the day. They came to their senses.
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