The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1899-01-28
HOGS VERSUS CHILDREN.
State Spends More Money to Protect
Health of Hogs Than Children.

The state board of health has just is
sued pamphlet containing a paper
What Sanitary Science Has Done for
American Life by Prof. j. b. Johnson
of ST. Louis, and Relations of the State
Board of Health to the Public" by
Prof. s. w. Williston, Lawrence.
Among other things Prof. Williston
says:
There is scarcely any science, I may
truthfully say no science, at the pres
ent time that is growing more rapidly
than that of sanitation. No science has
made greater strides within the past
ten years than that of bacteriology, and
bacteriOlOgy stands at the very founda-
ton of all public sanitation. Laws that
were useful ten years ago are inefficient
or useless now. Before consumption was
known to be a contagious disease dis
Seminated through the sputum of those
afflicted with it, no law could do much
to prevent its spread. AT the present
time, if there were a law against spit
ting in all public places, and the law
were enforced, believe that one-fourth
if not one-half of the cases of this dis
ease would be prevented There is no
disease so fatal as consumption, none
that causes more pecuniary loss, and
yet Kansas has made no attempt what
ever to prevent what can be SO easily
prevented. Kansas has wasted vast
deal of energy in trying to enforce tenn
perance by legislation, when there Is
more needless suffering from contagious
diseases in this state that could be pre-
vented by proper legislation than in
L
quite sure that, as a temperance meas
ure, sanitation is worth all that it costs
Ill health is the cause of a very large
share of intemperance, and a fourth of
all cases of sickness might be prevent
ed by proper sanitation.
1.-The trouble is that there are too
many who are yet imbued with the idea
that when a person dies it is fate, but
that when a hog enters the unreturnable
bourne, save in the appointed way, that
it is carelessness. An epizootic of hog
cholera causes CONSERVATION, but an
epidemic of scarlet fever is a dispensa-
ton of providence! The one is stamped
out with all possible vigor, and the aid
of the highest experts is called for; but
the other is dealt with il a very feeble
way, if at ALL
TT is a sad fact that the world is
more careless of human lives than it is
of dollars and cents. If there is danger
of Texas fever entering our common
wealth, the state willingly spends much
in prevention, but it begrudges a pit
tance to check the ravages of typhoid
fever, diphtheria and consumption.
There seems to be too many people and
too few cattle-tOo many children and
too few hogs; for we are careless in
the one case and careful in the other.
Kansas takes pains that the purveyor
of pills and potions shall be a properly
qualified person, but is careless whether
he who orders and uses them knows
ANYTHING about their use or not. Laws
for the regulation of dentistry or phar-
macy and of plumbing have or shortly
will be made statutory. but almost any
one may practice medicine, and the
munificent sum of 81, 100 is annually
granted by this great commonwealth for
the preservation of the public health.
Sixteen hundred dollars is the pluto
cratic salary the state pays its experts
in the care of its insane.
There are too many people, and the
state seems willing that some of them
should diel''
The annual appropriation for the state
sanitary live stock commission is $4,000
for per diem and mileage. The appro-
priation for the state board of health
was formerly $1,000 but was reduced by
the legislature to 81, 100.