Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1907-04-12
DR.. J. N. Mccormack, Americas
Medical Representative,
Gives Address
ENTERTAINING AND EDUcATIvE
DR.. Mccormack's Address, Which Was
Listened to by an Audience of $50,
Was Exceedingly Instructive-He Is
Engaged in Campaign Of Prevention
of Disease-Taiked of Sanitation.

and carefessness which causes much
ture delivered before an audience OF
$50 people at the Methodist church
Thursday evening by DR.. j. N. Nc
Cormack, of Bowling Green, Ky. Dr..
Mccormack is one of the representa-
tives OF the association.
Contrary, perhaps, to the expecta-
tions of some outside the medical pro-
fession. Dr. McCormacks lecture, was
so exceedingly plain and forceful in
the elemental truths with which he
dealt, that his meaning was carried to
all his hearers He touched on the
campaign the association
has under way, The sanitation and the
prevention of disease in the home,
schools and city. He took up the pa
tent medicines and pointed out the
frauds this great industry is perpe
trating on the public.
Turnout his lecture was the best and
most practical, exposition Of it's kind
ever delivered in this city
DIR. Mccormack said in part as fol-
lows:
"One-third of the people sick In this
state last year and every year, and
one-third of those you took to your
cemeteries, were sick and died of dis
eases which your medical profession
could and would have prevented If they
could have had the intelligent coop
GRAFTON of your people. You had in thai
year 1000 deaths from consumption,
which means that you have about 49,.
900 cases of this disease in your state
constantly, The common impression
is that this is an inherited malady, but
this is an error. No matter what your
mother and father died of you can no
more have consumption except by get
ting into your body the germs from a
previous case than you can raise corn
or wheat on one of your rich prairie
farms without seed. If all the expec-
torated matter and the other infectio
discharges from every case of this dis
ease now in your state could be col
lected and destroyed until they recover
or die. there need never be another
case within your borders unless 1t be
an important one.
you had 1900 deaths from the dis
eases of children caused by using dir
ty. adulterated or spoiled milk We Of
nocents by Herod, but he was novice
in the business as compared with our
modern cities. You shudder with nor
ror over the loss of life on the Larch-
mont and in the New York Central
wreck the other day. and properly so,
but more babies die needlessly every
week in your state during the hot sea-
son than there We're people killed in
both of these disasters, and it goes on
almost without comment. And it would
be cheaper for you to inspect the
dairies, or sterilize the milk. and save
these babies than it would to bury
them You had 1000 deaths from
diphtheria and scarlet fever all dis
tinctly preventable. You had 1.5Go
deaths from typhoid fever during that
that you have about 5000
cases of this disease during each year.
Typhoid fever is a typical filthy dis
ease. No one can have ii except by
getting into their mouth and stomach
some Of the discharges from bowel,
Or kidneys of some one who has it.
This is not nice thing to think about.
But nice people ought to think about
it and stop doing it. In cities it often
comes from use of infected water, as in
the epidemic now at Scranton, less fire.
quently in the milk, sometimes on the
hands, cooking utensils or food. In
small towns and country districts ty-
phoid fever is usually carried by the
ordinary house fly. as it was at Chica-
manga and the other military
Spain. In short, during this one year,
you had 10000 deaths from preventable
diseases How a state has no more
you had practically 10000 deaths from
diseases. Now state has
no more valuable asset than that rep
resented in it's healthy population.
your profession has tried for years
to secure the legislation which would
prevent these diseases, but the aver
age legislator honestly believed that
they sought it for their own benefit,
not stopping to consider that in SO far
as doctors prevent sickness they di-
minish their own income. In fact it
has often seemed to me that we have
been misunderstood largely because
the work is so purely altruistic. II is
not remembered to their credit that
they do more real Christian charity
every day and every year than all of
the other people put together. Ove>
a third of your people never paid a
doctors bill in their lives. and never
intend to. and yet no one of them ever
suffers from the want of attention,
either city, town or country districts.
All other citizens may profit by in
vention, but if a doctor makes a dis
covery he is forced by his VOWS to give
the benefit of it without
price. In spite of all this doctors are
because away back in
the dim past our forbears spoke I'M
kindly about each other. The clergy
and all of the other segregated call
ings did the same thing and have been
forgiven, but it is still held against US.
ITO meet conditions so grave, woven
into our laws and. what is far more
important, into the habits of thought
and life of the people. is no ordinary
problem Legislation, however COM
plete. unless supported by an educated
professional and public sentiment,
would have only an educational value.
sIJJtimately this means the same