The Madison daily leader. [volume] (Madison, S.D.) 1890-current, 1903-10-28
PUBLIC GENTlMENT MAKES IT I'M
POSSIBLE SUCCESSFULLY
COM2AT TuBERCULOSIS.
HEALTH OFFICERS DISCUSS SUBJECT
MORE INFECTIOUS THAN IEP-
ROSY YET NO PRECAUTIONS
ARE TAKEN AVCiDIT.

Washington, Oct. 2S.-The first reg
meeting of the American Public Health
association was held here during the
day, prominent bacteriologists and
students OF sanitation from the Unit
ed States, Canada, Mexico and Cuba
being present. After the convention
was called to order by Dr. Walter wy
man, surgeon general of the Marine
hospital and public health service,
General George NJ. Sternberg. surgeon
general, u. S. A., retired, delivered an
address in which he dwelt at length
on the efforts which have been made
to stamp out disease and to guard
against epidemies. The great pros
perity of some of the Southern states
during recent years, he said, had been
due to their protection from yellow
fever, which formerly operated as a
serious barrier to industrial and COM
mercial progress. He said that through
persistent efforts OF the association
this and other exotic pestilential dis
eases have been practically stamped
from the United States.
Although cholera, yellow fever
and bubonic plague" he continued.
"are no longer feared by sanitarians
we have not yet conquered our en-
demic filth disease. typhoid fever, and
tuberculosis still claims nearly 100000
victims annually within the limits of
the United States"
Until these and other widely prev
alent infections diseases are prac-
tically stamped out, he said. our self
imposed task will not be complete"
Ravases of tuberculosis.
The report OF the committee on
animal diseases and food, having ref
erence to the phase of tuberculosis
which relates TO its transmission from
the animal to human beings. was pre-
sented by DR. L. Salmon of the board
of animal industry, Washington, ID. c.
Clinical evidence, statistics and eX-
,a-As.ir,,nntni toste. ho declared. all favor,
the conclusion that bovine tuberculosis
was factor in human tuberculosis.
In the discussion which followed
DR.. Juan Guiteras OF Havana, the yel-
low fever expert. said that although
in Cuba the invariable custom is to
boil milk he believed the infantile
tuberculosis in Cuban children is as
frequent as anywhere else.
The committee on car sanitation re-
ported through DR.. j. N. Hurty OF In
dianapolis There is unanimity of
opinion, he said, regarding the trans
portation by common carriers OF per
sons sick with smallpox. diphtheria,
scarlet fever, yellow fever and typhoid
fever. Leprosy, he declared, is not
as easily transmitted as tuberculosis
and compared TO the latter in its de-
structiyeness of human life it amounts
to nothing at all. Yet, he said, a riot
would follow the introduction OF
leper into railway car. The word
he contended. makes lit
tie or no impression in face of the al
most certainty that not less than
$50 900 of those now living in the
United States will be dead of con-
within another twelve
months and three times that number
will be attacked in the same period.
People. he said, do not take precau-
tons against influenza, which kills a
thousand where leprosy kills one.
These and other considerations" he
said. make it plain that it will be
difficult 10 enforce rational and scien-
tific measures to prevent transmission
of Infection"