Devils Lake inter-ocean. (Devils Lake, Ramsey Co., Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1905, 1903-10-30
PUBLIC SENTIMENT MAKES 1T I'M
POSSIBLE TO SUCCESSFULLY
COMBAT TUBERCULOSIS.
HEALTH OFFICERS DISCUSS SUBJECT
MORE INFECTIOUS THAN .LEP.
ROSY YET NO PRECAUTIONS
ARE TAKEN TO AVOID 1T.

washington, OcL. Z6@1Q0 urSL reg.
ular session Of the thirty-1rst annual
meeting of the American Public Health
association q held here during the
day. prominent psychologists and
students of sanitation from the Unit
Cd 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 M. 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 epidemics. 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"
Ravages Of tuberculosis.
The report of the committee on
animal diseases and food, having ref
erence to the phase Of tuberculosis
which relates to it's transmission from
the animal to human beings, was pre-
scented by DR.. E. Salmon of the board
of animal industry, Washington, D. c..
Clinical evidence, statistics and ex-
perimental tests, he declared, all favor
the conclusion that bovine tuberculosis
was a factor in human tuberculosis.
In the discussion which followed
DR.. Juan Guiteras of Havana, the yell
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. Hurry 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 it's de-
structiveness of human life it amounts
to nothing at all. Yet, he said, a riot
would follow the Introduction of a
leper into a railway car The word
tuberculosis, he c%ontended, makes lit
tie or no impression in face Of the al
most certainty that not less than
100000 of those now living in the
United States will be dead of con-
sumption within another twelve
months and three times that number
will be attacked in the same period.
People, he said, do not take precau-
lions against influenza, which kills a
thousand where leprosy kills one.
"These and other considerations" he
said, make it plain that it will be
difficult to enforce rational and scien-
tifc measures to prevent transmission
of Infection"