If duties are to be measured by what things cost and the havoc they
work, then diseases like consumption and typhoid fever should certainly
find more people who would be willing to devote more of their time,
energy and means to eradicate at least some of the conditions presented
in the following statement:
Every day in the year there are two million people seriously
sick in the United States. Some of this can never be
prevented, but it is conservatively estimated that our annual
loss from preventable diseases alone is $2,000,000,000 per
year. Consumption alone formerly cost the United States over
$1,000,000,000 a year. Since the discovery of the germ by Dr.
Koch and of the improved methods of prevention and cure it has
been shown that where this knowledge is applied seventy-five
per cent of the loss from consumption can be prevented.
Typhoid fever costs the country $350,000,000 a year. The city
of Pittsburg alone has, by careful investigation, been shown
to have lost $3,142,000 from typhoid fever in one year. The
discovery that typhoid is produced by a special germ, which is
usually gotten from the water or milk supply or from flies, has
made it possible to control this expensive disease. As soon as
all our citizens have good sanitary training, this $350,000,000
expense for typhoid can be completely eliminated. It has been
shown that in the numerous cities in which the water supply
alone has been made sanitary, typhoid has been reduced on the
average seventy-one per cent.--New York, _Evening Post_.
(1362)
=Health by Singing=--See SINGING CONDUCIVE TO HEALTH.