The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1908-09-03

has attempted anything in this field,
the authority was given TO those who
had no training. and those who had
the training were given no authority.
Bad as is this record for the nation
that for your own state is no better.
Fully onethird of those sick and Of
those taken to your cemeteries last
year and every year, were sick and
died OF disease which ought 10 have
never occurred. About one of every
ten of your deaths were from con-
sumption and YOU o have a very
large tubercular population. Many in
telligent people think this is an in
herited disease, but all should know
that even if both parents died from
this malady, at the worst, only the
kind of constitution can be transmit
ted which makes the child especially
liable if exposed to it. If all the ex.
perforated matter and other infectious
discharges from every case now in
your state could be collected and des-
troyed, as your health authorities are
earnestly trying to have done, until all
of those now sick of it either recover
or die and proper attention could be
given to ventilation. open air exer-
else. the n~ourishment of those in any
way predisposed to it, and the tuber-
cular cows, there need never be an
other case here unless it be an i'm.
ported M You have a large sick and
death rate from typhoid fever ever
year. This is not only a preventable
but the most typical of filth diseases,
for no n can have it except by get
ting into the mouth and stomach
something from the discharges from
the bowels or kidneys of some n
who has it. This is not a nice thing
to think or talk about, but it is so
much worse to do it that nice people
ought to think and talk about it until
they can plan to stop doing it. In
cities infected water is the most CON-
carrier of the germs, as in Ply
mouth, Butler and Scranton, Pennsyl-
vania: Ithaca, New York and many
other places where the source was as
certained. 1t is often carried in milk,
but in small towns and country dis
tricts it is largely carried by the or
binary house fly, as was proven clear
ly at Chicamauga and other military
camps during the val with Spain.
You also have a large sick and death
rate from diptheria, measles, dysen-
terry, scarlet fever and other like di-
seases, to say nothing of the indis-
criminate slaughter of babies every
year from these diseases caused by
the use of adulterated, dirty or spoiled
milk. Under inspiration from Mr..
the great Jew philanthropist,
and many other cities, after
trial, have found that it is
actually cheaper to save the babies
than i. is to bury them.
In the past when the medical profess
sion in this and other states, as in the
nation, tired to secure legislation to
prevent these diseases, to just wipe
most of them from the map, as has
been done with cholera and yellow
fever, and as they know car be done
with these far nor important domes-
tic pe~Stilences, as is still often the
case with laws guarding the sick and
from fraud and imposi-
tons OF quackery, many public men
believe, and many do not hesitate to
say, that these efforts were selfish,
were not made for the good of the
people, no stopping to consider in so
far as doctors prevent sickness they
their W incomes. In fact
l was constantly impressed that it
was the very un~selfishness of this
movement which caused it to be mis-
understood. Legislators found no
other vocatiOns at their capitals urg.
ing bills antagonistic to it's own in
t%erests, and could not see why ours
should do it. 1t is because ours is
first CT all a humanitarian calling, in
volving daily contact with and devo-
ton to the sick and sorrowing and
the duty of saving life, that it took
up this work, just as, for the same
reason, it does more actual christian
charity every day in every year than
all the other organizations and peo-
pie put together. Again, all others
may profit by their discoveries, but
a doctor a not. Every reputable
physician is forced by his vows to
publish and give suffering humanity
the benefit of his inventions at once
without price. AS has already been
shown, ancient dissensions in our
ranks created the public sentiment
which has prevented a proper an.
probation of all this altruistic labor.
which is without parallel in all human
history.
Had my profession been as united.
in as close touch with the people and
as wise in a public way, during the
formative period of our government.
as the lawyers, health and medical
board would have been just as much
a part of the warp and wool of our
official system, in the counties, the
states and the nation, as the courts
nave always been. They ought to
have been. because they are more
important, just in so far as health
and life are more important than any
mere property interests. A great
health department at Washington.
with laboratories and research work.
ers endowed in proportion to the
power of this government and
the vast interests involved: such as
would develop the cause and methods
OF prevention of diseases not yet un.
derstood; with such a system of col.
lective investigation as would make II
possible to gather, tabulate and dis.
tribute the facts in regard to every
county in every state. is inst