San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1889-03-02
THE PUBLIC HEALTH.
L TERRIBLE WASTE OF LIFE IN
EVERY COMMUNITY.
Death from Certain Diseases Unnecessary.
Dangers That Surround the Poor-Awful
Condition in Cities-When CareIessness
Is Criminal

Reason declares that sickness and death will
be more likely to prevail among the poor than
among the rich and those in comfortable cir
cumstances and statistics prove such actu
ally to be the case. The man of means is
able to consult his health, to rest when its
condition requires him to do so, to take needed
vacations, to seek change of climate to OBJ
tain leisure for wholesome recreation and
pastimcs, he habitually dwells amid comfort
able and sanitary surroundings, enjoys the
best air, food and clothing, obtains medicines
and medical attendance when and as soon as
ne requires them and, in fact, commands all
the resources that civilization and science
have to offer for getting and keeping him
well and for pTolonging his life into extreme
old age. The poor man necessarily can pro
tcct himself much less
TIE DANGERS OF POVERTY.
We hear of no diseases peculiar to mem
bcrs of the learned professions, merchants,
bankers, capitalists, etc Almost every trade
has its distinguishing ailncnt For instance.
painters collie" "pottcr's asthma" coal
miners black lung" knife grinders con.
SUMPTION" "COppcrsmith's green hair" etc
1t would be well, it may be remarked in pass
ing, if the law would take steps to reduce the
workshops to be supplied with the best
means of cOunteracting the effects of nox-
iOus gases, masks for the eyes, respirators for
the lungs and bath house for workmen,
and by shortening the hours of labor in espe-
clally dangerous occupations. The mortality
in the trades is two or three times that in the
professions, among which, by the way, the
deaths among the doctors exceed those among
+ bpp ,,,,l
qucnt contact with communicable disease
Fairs Law Of Density" states that 1.-THE
nearer men live to each other, the shorter are
their lives" Not only are the poor more ex-
posed to disease aud death than the rich. but
the poor IN cities than the poor in the coun-
try. The general mortality in cities is two to
three times higher than that in the country
twenty-five per cent. of our population to-
day dwell in large cities Here exists the
greatest poverty, contamination of the soil
and mortality. In New York 2,O76 people
were recently found inhabiting a single block
fourteen or fifteen sometimes in two rooms. or
even one, which served as kitchen, workshop
laundry, bed chamber and parlor Among
such roOkeries exists what is known as the
tenement house rot, and two-thirds of the
mortality Of New York occurs in them. The
it has found Judgment in such dens, and the
difficulty Of arresting and Graduating
1t can scarcely be exaggerated. Among
them a corpse is allowed to lie two
days in the same room in which the fam
lily eat, work and sleep, with possibly an in
valid in bed, and the thermometer often
ranging over 100 degs. The food and water
are bad, the Stops imperfectly disposed of and
the sewer exhales poisonous gases. Poverty
Is forced to endure unhealthy surroundings,
and unhealthy surroundings, in addition to
their probable direct effects, deprive human
beings Of their self respect, deaden their in
telIects, render their blood impure and so in
directly make them more liable to contract
disease. In the cities of Scotland it has been
found that where the average of persons to
the room is highest, the mortality is the high
est, IL Glasgow, that where the number u
large houses exceeds that of small, it is least.
and vice versa. In England and Wales in
every LOCO persons 25 die in cities to IL in the
country In E.ode Island, satisfies - IF |