general health work, including sanitary engineering, and gave the
unprecedented sum of $2,000,000 for extending the tuberculosis campaign,
both by increased facilities offered through the dispensaries already
organized and by further extension of state sanatoria.
The legislature of 1911 still further increased the appropriations for
the department so that a total of $3,701,360 was provided for furthering
public health work, including $2,653,248 for fighting tuberculosis.
In the first organization of the Department of Health a broad and liberal
educational campaign was started, on a comprehensive plan through seven
important executive divisions and two auxiliary divisions, whose chiefs
reported directly to the central authority, the Commissioner of Health.
In a very short time the vital statistics of this commonwealth were so
thoroughly gathered that the census office included the state in the
“registration area.”
The division of medical inspection, in a comprehensive way, covered
all the quarantinable diseases in the second-class townships of the
commonwealth, the reports being gathered from the health officers in the
720 sanitary districts under the general supervision of sixty-six county
medical inspectors. By these officers quarantining and disinfecting is
performed.
The division of sanitary engineering, through seven subdivisions,
undertook the important work of protecting the stream from pollution and
the supervision of the plans for water works and sewerage works.
The sanatorium division took charge of operating the hospitals.
A dispensary division with 115 dispensaries, one in each large center of
population, rendered great assistance to the indigent poor afflicted with
tuberculosis, and supervised the work done by a corps of 110 nurses.
The division of distribution of biological products had the disposition
of diphtheria antitoxin from 650 distributing stations and of tetanus
antitoxin from sixty-seven.
The auxiliary division of accounting, auditing and purchasing looked out
for important business and office details.
A division of supplies arranged for prompt distribution of everything
needed for record work and field work and through each of these
important divisions forwarded daily, weekly and monthly reports to the
commissioner’s office, a record of its work and accomplishment. All of
which was transmitted to the public by means of monthly bulletins, weekly
newspaper talks, and oral addresses. Educational leaflets showing the
methods of prevention of all of the different diseases were distributed
in large numbers throughout the commonwealth, and a scheme of education
was organized, giving to the public through some 900 newspapers all of
the facts gleaned by careful study.
A traveling tuberculosis and sanitary exhibit is sent to all the large
centers of population throughout the state, papers are prepared and read
before scientific societies, charitable organizations, boards of trade,
civic clubs, teachers’ institutes and the various bodies interested in
saving human life. Lantern slides are furnished ministers and educators
to promote the public health interest, and not only does the state do
this important educational work, but through its dispensaries a very
important sociological work is carried on, which not only protects those
in their homes against tuberculosis and secures much needed charitable
aid, but assists in protecting against every disease due to unsanitary
conditions.
The department is preparing to comply with the new school code and make
medical inspection of all school children in districts of the fourth
class. This one agency must have a far-reaching influence in conserving
health.
Quoting from a recent published report of the department, a few of the
things that have been accomplished may thus be referred to:
From June 1, 1907, to August 1, 1911, 5,819 patients have been
admitted to the State Sanatorium for Tuberculosis at Mont Alto.
Many of these patients have been discharged with the disease
arrested; hundreds have been benefited and have gone back to
their homes disciples of fresh air and right methods of living;
many more whose cases were too far advanced to hope for much
aid have been made comfortable and happy and provided with a
good home where they would not be a source of danger to others.
From July 22, 1907, when the first dispensary was opened, to
June 30, 1911, 41,792 poor tuberculosis sufferers received
skilled medical aid and the attention of trained nurses which
the department’s 115 dispensaries provide.
The death rate from tuberculosis in Pennsylvania had fallen
from 134 to 119.6 per one hundred thousand of population
in five years, this meaning a saving of one thousand lives
annually.
From October, 1905, when the state began its free distribution
of diphtheria antitoxin among the poor, to the end of December,
1910, 27,318 cases of diphtheria, mostly little children,
were treated for cure, with diphtheria antitoxin. We know by
statistics that without antitoxin forty-two out of every 100
of these children, or 11,476 in all, would probably have died;
but with the aid of antitoxin furnished by the department, only
2,324 died, and the death rate among these little sufferers was
reduced to eight and five-tenths per cent. Diphtheria antitoxin
was given for immunizing purposes to 20,294 cases. The computed
saving of child life resulting from the free distribution of
antitoxin since 1905 is 9,152.
Throughout Pennsylvania the streams are slowly becoming freed
of pollution: not so slowly either, when records show that up
to August 1, 1911, 34,481 private sources of stream pollution
have been abated upon notice from the department, not to speak
of the thousands more that have been stopped through the moral
influence of this work. Eighty-nine modern sewage disposal
plants either have been built or are in process of construction
as approved by the department. Two hundred and eighty-four
municipalities and private sewerage corporations are building
comprehensive sewerage systems in accordance with plans for
such work, details of which must be approved by the department.
Already eighty-six modern filtration plants have been approved
and begun accordingly.
And what of typhoid fever in view of all this work for pure
water? In 1906, 56.5 out of every 100,000 people died from this
disease; in 1907, 50.3; in 1908, 34.4; in 1909, 23.4, and in
1910, 25.7. That is, there are now living 2,448 inhabitants of
Pennsylvania who, had the death rate of 1906 prevailed in 1910,
would have died from typhoid fever.
In 1906 the death rate from all causes, per 1000 population,
was 16.5; in 1908, it had dropped to 15.7; and in 1910 to 15.6.
At first glance this saving of life may not seem a remarkable
diminution, but with Pennsylvania’s 7,655,000 population, is a
great gain. This appears when one figures precisely what this
slight numerical drop means in the actual saving of lives. Had
the rate of 1906 prevailed in 1908, some 6,000 more people
would have died than actually succumbed. Had this same rate
applied in 1910 instead of the decreased rate recorded by the
Department of Health, just 6,889 men, women and children now
living and presumably in average health and spirits would have
died. In other words, these matter-or-fact statistics, when
interpreted in their real relation to the welfare and happiness
of the state, mean the saving to the state of 20,000 lives in
three years.
And the fight is only fairly well begun.
In the semi-official summary I have just read, the subject of “a purified
water supply” was treated in a single paragraph, as a subordinate part of
the general work of the State Health Department for the conservation of
human life. If an apology is due for what appears a straying from my main
topic, the declaration of purposes of the Pennsylvania state branch, I am
ready to make the apology; but I cannot believe any excuse is needed for
giving to conservation of life and health an importance far ahead of all
other conservation.
The curse of forest fires still hangs over us, and prohibits the planting
of vast areas which should be growing timber. It is comforting that
these fires are less destructive than formerly, but it is nevertheless
a disgrace to our civilization, or lack of civilization, that they must
occur at all. Education of our people and condign punishment of those
whose carelessness or malice causes them will eventually make these
annual holocausts a thing of the past. To this end liberal appropriations
should be made by the state, rewards or prizes being offered to those who
prove most efficient in checking fires.
Nothing is more vital to forestry than the total suppression of these
fires. No attempt need be made to replant vast treeless areas, or no
expense incurred in protecting the young growth upon them until the fires
are prevented. In the year 1908 the cash value of timber destroyed by
forest fires in New York was estimated at $780,164. For the same period
in Pennsylvania the estimate was $688,980. The loss of humus and general
forest litter was even more serious than the loss of timber because of
wasted fertility and increase of surface wash during heavy rains. Each
successive fire leaves the ground more exposed and less productive, the
end of which is a desert condition. It is safe to say that at this hour
our state has thousands of square miles which are unproductive because
of forest fires. A radical change of policy in this matter is needed.
Attention should be given to prevention rather than to suppression of the
forest fires, and sufficient force and funds provided to accomplish this
end, which is essential to the continued prosperity of the state.
Taxation of forest lands under our present system leads the state to
impoverish itself, by premature destruction of its timber resources,
and the industries depending upon them, and by increasing the areas of
stripped lands, which, because of their unprotected condition, become
year by year less and less fit for agriculture when an increasing
population requires their occupation for home and farm sites. The
law wisely requires that our engineers, physicians and lawyers shall
have received proper training before entering upon duties intimately
associated with the welfare and safety of others. It is to be regretted
that prospective legislators and commissioners cannot be required to show
some fitness for the work expected from them, before coming before the
people as candidates.
It is notorious that the taxes imposed lead to the destruction of growing
trees which are each year earning their right to stand by the benefit
they confer upon the public. The only exclusive privilege which the owner
enjoys from them is that of paying taxes for a seldom-accorded protection
against fire, and depredation.
Timber should be taxed only when cut and then at a rate per thousand
feet proportionate to the income received from it, but sufficient to
make good, in a measure, the loss of tax during the growing period. This
conclusion seems to have been reached by every disinterested person who
has fairly considered the problem in all of its aspects. Bills leading to
such a system of taxation have been defeated in the last three sessions
of our legislature, but that is not the last of them, for the ultimate
adoption of a proper system of forest taxation is beyond question.
Pennsylvania has done and is doing too much in behalf of forest-growing,
to hesitate at an expedient so necessary and so simple.
The state has practically a million of acres, distributed over twenty-six
counties, in its forest reserve system. There are two admirable schools
of forestry, one of which is intended solely to prepare men for the
forest service of the state.
Three extensive nurseries produce seedling forest trees for planting on
the state’s land and for distribution to our citizens at nominal cost,
on assurance that they will be properly planted and cared for. In 1909
there were set out in permanent position 750,318 young trees, mostly on
abandoned farms which had come, by purchase, into the possession of the
commonwealth. We are rapidly increasing the output of these nurseries and
expect at an early date to plant at least ten to twenty million trees
annually. We are fortunate in having no laws which prevent scientific
forestry. A tree, or a forest, may be cut when it is in the interest of
the state to do so.
Water courses as a source of power are considered apart from water
supply for domestic purposes, the latter being, in Pennsylvania, mainly
controlled by the Department of Health.
Many water powers were purchased or seized, by those who anticipated
their value, under our earlier lax laws, before their importance was
generally recognized. They have thus passed too far out of state control
to be available under existing laws as a source of public revenue.
But in constituting the Water Power Commission it was provided that
future letters patent “will not be issued to any water, or water-power
company, nor will any such company be allowed to merge and consolidate,
or to purchase the property and franchise of any other such company
until the application for the charter, or the agreement of merger and
consolidation, or the purchase and sale has been first submitted to
and received the approval of a majority of the commission. Nor will
any person, corporation or municipality be allowed to construct, erect
or build any dam or other obstruction in any river or stream without
the approval of the commission.” No franchise whatever in the interest
of any individual or corporation, should be granted without adequate
compensation to the state, nor should any obstruction be allowed place
in any navigable stream unless locks of liberal size are provided for
passing it. In the near future every important river in the state will
probably be converted into a lake system capable of dead water navigation
up to head waters, as an accompaniment of the dams erected for power
purposes.
Better protection of wild life in forest and stream can readily be
provided by taxing, as is the usage in most of the states, those who
enjoy the privilege of hunting and fishing. A license fee of one dollar
a year from each sportsman would pay for a much more efficient system of
forest and stream protection than we have ever had. This would exempt
those who have no interest in the sport and place the slight burden where
it belongs, upon those who hunt and fish.
Conservation means use without waste, and is sound doctrine whether our
mineral resources are to last for fifty, or for five thousand years. That
there has been waste, not all unavoidable, is attested by the constant
endeavor of our best mining engineers to discover more economical methods.
It is gratifying to be assured that their investigations have borne
fruit, and that the loss of good coal in anthracite mining has within
recent years been reduced so that “at present the recovery will average
about sixty per cent and loss about forty per cent.” Not long ago these
proportions were exactly reversed.
The numbers annually killed and crippled by serious injuries among the
coal miners of this state are still appalling. The annual report of the
department of Mines in Pennsylvania for 1909 says:
“In producing the output for the year 567 persons were killed
in the anthracite region and 1034 were injured. In the
bituminous region 506 were killed and 1126 were injured.”
From the same report we learn that these casualties, though exceeding
the dead and wounded in many famous battles, are yet slightly less
per million tons mined than were suffered the same year in the deep
collieries of England; but the difference is hardly enough to bring us
much comfort.
In mining, as in every other industry, we may look to education as a most
hopeful factor in reducing the number of accidents. Christian sympathy
is another factor; to that we owe it that children under fourteen years
of age are by law excluded as laborers from our mines. We must love our
brother even when begrimed with coal dust.
The ease with which land could at first be obtained in Pennsylvania led
to neglect of conservative principles in agriculture. It was cheaper, for
a time, to abandon a worn-out farm than to restore it to a productive
condition. The result is seen in thousands of acres of barren, neglected
hillsides. The average production per acre in Pennsylvania was, twenty
years ago, so much below the possibilities as to be discreditable to the
commonwealth.
This negligence is fast giving way to more modern methods, and the yield
of our acres is on a rapid ascent. The struggle for existence has no
doubt contributed somewhat to this, though education through the agency
of improved schools, of the Grange, farmers’ clubs and institutes, and
more easy access to markets have been more potent. The former isolation
of the farmer was against him. His land hunger kept him from seeing that
there was more money in fifty acres of well-tilled land than in one
hundred acres of starved soil. Experience is bringing wisdom to him, and
to the rest of us. We must have better roads, more improved machinery,
more social intercourse and more fertilization of the soil, to keep the
lad on the farm and to bring our yield per acre up to that of England and
Belgium.
The Water Gap of the Delaware River, the Horse Shoe Curve in the
Alleghanies, the Blue Ridge near the Mason and Dixon line, the environs
of Mauch Chunk, are admired every year by thousands, a very large
proportion of whom live outside the limits of our state. Pennsylvania
values these scenic attractions as sources of revenue to railroads and
resort keepers. It is a pity, but it is true, that our people have
not yet awakened to the educational and uplifting influences of the
beauties of our river and mountain scenery. We lack the inborn love for
the landscape that characterizes the dweller on the heaths of Scotland,
or under the shadow of the Alps, and in so far we fail to attach their
just value to some of the noblest and most precious possessions of our
state. These possessions should be zealously protected before they are
hopelessly ruined, or given over to less important uses.
The gospel of fresh air, for the physical salvation of the people is
sweeping the land. “It is cheaper, wiser, and more humane to prevent
disease than to cure it.” Within recent years, largely by the efforts of
the secretary of our state conservation branch, it has become possible
for a municipality to own and care for parks, which may become not only
beauty-spots, but outing-grounds, and lumber-producers as well. It is
hard to limit the possibilities of such a law, for good, and it is in the
direction of public desires.
Education in conservation means education in citizenship. Every child not
only should know, but is entitled to know, what our national resources
are and how they may be preserved. He is a partner in ownership of this
stock in trade, out of which his living is to come. He should have full
access to the inventory, and should know how long it will last, where it
may be distributed to best advantage, and where the next supply is to
come from. This is even more important to him and to the country than
all involved in allegiance to any particular political party. It would
be well for every family to have a copy of “The Land We Live In,” a new
book by Overton W. Price, vice-president of the National Conservation
Association, published by Small, Maynard & Co., of Boston. It was written
especially for boys, but contains a vast fund of valuable information
compiled in an attractive form which would interest everyone. The natural
laws upon which our continued productive capacity depends should be
taught in every school and to every pupil; for violation of those laws
brings punishment which is as certain as it is bitter.
This commentary on the Pennsylvania statement of purposes, or “ten
commandments,” has called for some condensation, for the amount
that might be said, and well said, on each of these points could be
indefinitely extended. It is largely the work of Dr. Rothrock, one of my
colleagues, a veteran in the conservation cause. I think it may be an
encouragement to this Congress to have a clear and full statement of the
work in furtherance of its aims, now done or undertaken in our state;
and, without making or suggesting a comparison with the achievements
of any other state, I may add that Pennsylvania is not ashamed of the
beginning it has made.
REPORT FOR SOUTH CAROLINA.
BY DR. M. W. TWITCHELL.
I shall carry out the advice given to the speaker of experience who has
told us to say our best things first and then stop. I have only a few
things to say. I represent a state quite a little distance from the
state of Missouri. I came as the representative of the Governor of South
Carolina, as a member of the conservation commission, and just want
to say one or two of the things which South Carolina is doing to help
on the cause of conservation. First, in regard to the conservation of
human life, and the prevention of disease. There is one thing just being
done down there which is new in this respect; that we have a pure food
commission which is doing something, in that it is inspecting the food
products which are coming into the State of South Carolina, particularly
the corn products. We are confiscating diseased corn, taking possession
of it, and insisting upon that the corn products which are brought into
South Carolina shall be pure and healthful.
Another thing which we are doing is in regard to the drainage of our
swamp lands. Today we heard of the importance of this movement with
regard to the swamp lands of the Mississippi valley. We have swamp lands,
as you know, along the Atlantic coast, thousands of acres of them, and
we want them made available for cultivation. They will then be amongst
the richest lands of our country, and we are actually going at it. We
find that we cannot afford to wait for national aid of a direct type, so
we are organizing drainage districts under a state law, which permits
organization of districts, coöperating with the government, and actually
draining certain portions of the swamp lands. So far we have had three
drainage districts organized, and over two thousand acres of land in one
district, and about three thousand acres in another have already been
drained by this new method under a swamp land drainage law. We are going
ahead along that line, and in the future you will hear of many thousands
of acres of this swamp land that will be made garden spots, truck lands,
similar to those that we already have in the vicinity of Charleston. Just
a word in regard to the conservation of the soil. We have no law, there
is no special state move in this respect, but the State of South Carolina
produced last year 1,200,000 tons of commercial fertilizer, and the
largest part of that immense product was used within the state of South
Carolina itself. Now, that is conserving the soil. That is doing the
thing that many of the people of the West will have to come to in view
of the lost fertility by rotation of crops upon the same land year after
year.
Just a final word in regard to the work in the improvement of rural
life conditions. The State of South Carolina is a leader in that we
have appointed a state inspector of rural schools. He is an educational
engineer and travels all over the state. He visits rural school after
rural school. He studies the conditions there, and he makes reports
to the state board of education, and conditions are improved, and the
state has made appropriations for the aid of these rural schools as the
educational engineer reports along these lines. We are interested in the
conservation movement. We think it is a grand movement for the benefit
not only of the present day, but of the generations to come. I thank you.
(Applause)
NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS REPRESENTED AT THE THIRD NATIONAL CONSERVATION
CONGRESS.