Arizona republican., 1908-10-23
CONSULTATIONS COST
 IN DOLLARS AND CENTS
An Estimate Which Places 1t at $1,oo0, 100000 a Year.

Washington, Oct 22.-(Special Cor respOndence of The Republican.)- Prof Irving Fisher, the eminent po- | litical economist of Yale university, who in one of his papers before the recent International Tuberculosis con gress in Washington declared that consumption costs the people of the United States more than billion dollars year, Is preparing an eX- ! haustive report for the National Con- servatiOn Commission, which will contain not only these figures but similar data on the economic loss to the country from all other prevent able diseases.
 Prof. Fisher is a member of the national conservation committee and | for many years has been carrying on l studies along these lines. The com mission received letters from physi clans all over the country urging it to ! consider the bearing of public health on the economic efficiency of the nation in its efforts to ascertain the ! resources of the country.
 The commission from the beginning has contemplated reports on the eco homie aspects of several phases of the conservation movement which af- feet the duration and effectiveness of human life, but Prof Fisher has un- dertaken to prepare a comprehensive statement of the whole subject of the relations of public health to the general field of conservation, and es- pecially as to the waste from prevent | able diseases and unnecessary deaths.
 Dr Fisher is professor of political economy at Yale university and chair man of the Committee of One Hun dred" of the American association for the Advancement of Science, which has for a long time been carrying on propaganda for the increase of nation al health through the elimination of preventable diseases. This committee of one hundred is composed of physi- cians and now engaged in active so- biological werk in every part of the country, and the results of their inves- tigations and experience are all avail able to Dr. Fisher. so that his report ought to be the most thorough going and complete summary of the situa- tion ever made.
 At the Tuberculosis congress, Prof. Fisher declared that 13S,0 persons die of consumption every year. The cost of medical attendance and the loss of earnings before death average at least s2.40O he said, while if to this is added the money that might have been earned with health. the total loss is each case is about SS.0O0 He point ed out, also, that the disease usually attacks young men and women just at the time when they are beginning to earn money and cuts off their earning power for about three years on an av- craze, before they die
 This subject ol the economic value to the country of general raising of the average health came up in the Governors Conference at the White House in May. Dr. George M. Kober in his speech on the Conservation of Life and Health b. Improved Water Supply at the conference presented figures which showed that the decrease in the vital assets" of the country through typhoid fever in a single year is more than S35O,OOO,0OO. Typhoid is spread by polluted water largely so that the death rate fro mthis disease can be directly reduced by the purifi- cation of city drinking water. pr. Kober CuOted statistics to show that the increased valre ot the water to the city of Albany, where the typhoid fever rate vas reduced from 1O4 in 100000 to 26 by an efficient filtration plant. amounts to S475.OOO a year, of which S350,00O may be considered a real increase to the vital assets of the city. Census bureau figures show that the average annual death rate from typhoid in cities with con taminated water supplies was reduced 1 from 69.4 per 100000 70 19.S by the 1 substitution of pure supplies.
 Dr. KOber cited estimates showing | that the average length of human life ! in the sixteenth century was between | IS and 20 years, and that at the close | of the eighteenth century it was | little more than 90, while today it is | between 3S and 4O-indeed. the span . of life since 1880 has been length | ened about six years.
 -fl---