The Washington times., 1905-02-12
GREATEST MENACE.
TO WASH|NGT ON|ANS
Consumption Will Kill
One in Every Seven"
WORSE THAN OTHER CITIES
Efforts of Associated Charities to En-
tighten Public as to Danger
From This Disease.

1T seems strange" said Charles f..
Weller, secretary of the committee on
the prevention of consumption, one of
the four special committees OF the Asso-
eiated Charities, to a Times reporter
yesterday, that the one thing this city
most needs 1t has the least Of
Washington is shown by the statistics
of the Department of Labor to have,
outside of the health resorts, the great
est number of deaths from that most
prevalent and dreaded of all diseases
consunlption-of all the cities. and yet 1T
is the least prepared for and the least
protec%sl against it.
1T IS a strange thing that we pass
laws a.ad appropriate money for every
thing else. and. yet. though 1t Is point
ed out clearly that this is the very home
of the greatest OF ali the menaces to So
cicty, we have passed no law in regard
to 3
THE public reads and Is horror
stricken at fire in the Iroauois Theater
in Chicago. on the Slocuna disaster In
New York, or of a battle in Japan, yet
overlooks an enemv in its very midst
that Is striking down 800 lives every
year, that Is to say, nearly three lives
Cay, and is a possible murderer of us
all.
One in every seven people you sec
on the street here is going 10 die of
consumption" he went on and this is
not the worst of il. Practically every
person you meet has consumption
There Is hardly one family that is lid
of II; this disease pervades every block
in the city, and 1t is as contagious as
any ether known disease.
Denver and Los Angeles alone nSve
a "a 3ea. ~ nF
tuberculosis, and this is because they
are consumptive resorts. This Is not
said for sensation. These are the facts.
Isn't 1t strange, then, that Congress
viii do nothing to prevent 1t, and that
the citizens them selves are blind to its
Prevalence? II knocks at every door It
Is IN eFesv room, yet the people do not
realize it,
Lectures have been given and liter
AZURE distributed free, and only recently
the consumptiYe dispensary has been in
existence and the proper meals have
been served from the diet kitchen of the
Instructive Visiting Nurse society.
which works in connection with Mr..
Weiler's committee.
"This Is Ridiculous"
''Al this is ridiculous" said MIR
Hatch, who acted as superintendent OF
the disDenSary. Why, | have on my
desk now 4 number of letters from per-
sons or societies outside Of town saying
that If we win furnish railway fara and
the money for board for consumptives
here they viii be placed in their SAINT
tariilms and cured free of charge PEG
pie out of town seem to know how little
we have done.
Consumption is both pFeyent~s'ie and
durable" he added ten years we
er re.. and I'D - people would awake eto
[t 30 st...lslsion. Think of that. Ana vet
remain. in spite OF the fripbtf,,I
mortality and in spite of the fact that
We nearly every one of us have tho
germs IN our system. the most infiif-
ierent people In the world
But ali that must and viii he
changed, he went on we eannct re
main ignorant so much longer than
the people IN the other forty big cfties
we were compared with in the Bureau
commerce and Labor pamphlet.
are two laws at least that
Gould pass:
TO compel physicians to |
OF consumption
build Mar