The San Francisco call., 1899-09-21
CONSUMPTION QUARANTINE.

tves was made by our State Board OF Health
- much desirable discussion has been stimulated
all over the country.
The disease is costly to civilization and appalling
in its results, because it strikes human life IN its
most useful period The diseases OF senillty, which
find in the weakness OF old age invitation to at
tack strike at victims whose years near accom-
plished. Society has benefited from their physical
strength and mental vigor and these being ex-
hausted, being already invested for the good OF the
world their call hence is scene around which graft
tude for the past sincerely, but society is not
loser. The young may die the old must, is the
statement OF physical fact, and not cynicism.
Medical science does its duty the world by striv-
ing to curb juvenile mortality. The odiurn OF urban
life is the rightul mortality OF children, not the nat
ural passing OF the aged. The strength OF states is
undermined when the young die in masses What is
sorrow family in which children perish untimely
finally becomes to the commonwealth menace.
When vital statistics are carefully kept and the birth
rate and juvenile death rate can be compared, the
future OF state can be accurately predicted and the
hour OF its fall foretold 1t is in this aspect that
sumption invested with peculiar terror, and herein
is the interest OF the in its eXrpation 1t is
scourge OF the young. The period OF its assault lies
in the twenty years between the ages OF fifteen and
thirty-fve.
This is the age Of adolescence and accomplishment
The dynamic force nation is in its people between
those ages Not only is that the period OF their best
preparation for usefulness but it is the period in
which the funess OF their strength passes into the
generations to be. Within that period the pa
rental years. and the endurance needed in the
of the young Therefore, when consumption smites
life it strikes society and the state II it remove
life before it reaches its majority parents may be left
forlorn for need OF children lean upon and depend
upon Indulgence follows, therefore, in the ghastly
train of consequences II the disease cast its awful
shadow upon parents falls the cradle, and
infant life inherts constitutional weakness and is
phaned at one blow.
An investigation of the final cause OF crime, in
high percentage OF cases. finds behind the criminal
poverty and next behind its squaor death, and next
in rank behind the grim specter gnaw the diseases
that say between the ages Of fifteen and thirtyhve.
No social prudence statutory care, nor institu
tional effort effectively replace and substitute the
link in the chain OF cause and effect which is broken
by the preventabe diseases that destroy that period
OF twenty years 1t is therefore, the span which
science must patrol as a sentry, guard the life
OF the state against enemy.
| We teach law and medicine in State univers-
ties-why? That the State may train men and women
to defend it III the against crime and the war
against death. 1t is not merely to equip them,
public expense to make personal profit in learned
profession, but to raise up a loyal guild whose
ber shall save to the State the strength OF its people
in their most servceable years. and shall preserve its
noblest crop its oncoming and Every
life saved in that period OF twenty years economies
for the State by lessenng the risk OF indgence and
shortening the calendar OF the criminal court. In
place OF paupers to be fed and criminals be chained
it puts men who walk uprighty filed with the sap OF
life gendered by stout ancestry, and TO be the fore
bears OF strong posterity In these interests the
State takes its jurisdiction and derives among its po
lice powers the right to curb endemic infection
We have no doubt as proposition OF law that the
State can enforce isolation the dsinecOn OF sputum
and other useful sanitary rules, limit the injection
OF consumption Typhoid fever is a secondary
scourge but the police statutes OF the State canonze
against the pollution of potable by deections
and other Of charging them with the microbe OF
typhoid The State makes such pollution misde
meanor and lays upon it heavy hand But the
State as yet unawakened to the fact that pollution of
the air easier than pollution OF water has statute
against excretion OF spuum in the street filled with
vital germs OF consumption that to reach the
air passages OF unsuspecting hundreds, to find their
first lodgment and ger1ninate in the larynx, produc
ing that peculiar sore throat that foreruns consump
ton from there to spread and destroy the lung The
State provides inspectors to watch the moths that
deposit germs in the bloom OF fruit trees whence is
sue that penetrate and destroy the pulp The
origin and progress of the bacill OF consumption
not widely different.
OF course State quarantine raises series of inter
esting legal questions 1t is restraint OF personal
freedom If established its first case would take out
a writ Of habeas corpus, and the issue would go to
/ judicial trial decision would probably overthrow
| the quarantine but it would greatly illuminate the
problem and be of inestimable value in focusing
public attention upon its importance.
Hon John Barrett, former Minister to Siam, is au-
thority for the statement that Secretary Hay warned
him. just prior to his departure from Washington to
be careful of his utterances the inference left to be
/