The National tribune., 1908-10-08

1 -1ndC. COll6RGS Sho titAN
should Se urged TO establish courses 1r
hygiene and sanitation, and also to M
clude these subjects among their en-
! trance requirements, in order to stinlu-
Hate useful elementary instruction in
the lower schools.
THAT this Congress indorses and
recommends the establishment of play
grounds as an important means of pre-
venting tuberculosis thru their infiu-
ence upon health and resistance to dis
ease"
You will see that the resolution
which knocks the Koch theory doesn't
do it so very hard. because they say:
THE possibility of the propagation be
recognized"
/ possibility is reduced to minimum
and does not deny that research
might" prove the communicating.
President Roosevelt could not find
| time to preside over the deliberations
of the Congress as it was hoped that
he could, but sent as his representa-
tive Secretary of the Treasury Cortel-
you. 1t was not expected that the
President could attend the Congress at
all, but Saturday afternoon he walked
in on the last deliberative meeting. and
received an ovation. Especially delight
ed We're the foreign members of the
Congress. They threw up their hands
ana yelieu tneiT various natlOnal nuT-
rahs" till you would have thot the
Tower of Babel was tumbling in the
confusion of tongues. 1t was good to
see, and good to hear, and for fully
five minutes the most talked of, and
probably the best loved man in the
world today. Theodore Roosevelt,
stood and bowed and smiled and bow
ed again, while the people ripped the
circumnambient with their shouts.
Mr.. Cortelyou introduced him SIM
ply, Ladies and gentlemen, the Pres
ident," and then they cheered again
the ladies and gentlemen did, and let
me tell you the women were not slow
at making a noise either. The Presi-
dent spoke briefly and to the point, as
he always does.
He said, in part:
Il could not deny myself the privi-
lege of saying a word of greeting to
this noteworthy gathering. It is diff
cult for us to realize the extraordinary
changes, the extraordinary progress. in
certain lines of social endeavor during
the last two or three generations. and
in no other manifestation of human ac-
tivity have the changes been quite so
far-reaching as in the ability to grap-
pie with disease
1T is not SO very long, measuring
time by history. since the attitude of
man toward a disease such as that of
quiescence in what he considered to be
the mandates of supernatural power.
Medical Progress Recent.
1T is but short time since even the
most gifted members of the medical
profession knew as little as any lay
man of the real causes of disease like |
this, and, therefore, necessarily, of the |
remedies to be invoked to overcome |
them. 1t is an affair OF decades-I am
almost tempted to say an affair of
years-when we so hack to cover the |
period in which progress has been
made
Take, for instance. the work that
the United States Government is now
doing in Panama. When the first rail-
road was built across Panama it was |
said, with some foundation of truth, |
with but slight exaggcration, that every
sleeper laid cost the life of man Now
the work on the canal in that identical !
place is being prosecuted on an inf
nitely larger scale, of course. than the
mere building of a railroad, under con-
iitons which make the locality stand
above tho ordinary locality in the
United States in point of health.
The Isthmus of Panama, which was
I by-word for fatal diseases. has be-
come well-nigh sanitarium; and it
has become SO because of the inYesti-
cations of certain medical men, which
enabled them to find out the real causes
If certain diseases, especially yellow
ever and malarial fever, and to take
measures to overcome them. The older
ioctors here, when they were medical
would have treated the sug-l
,cstion of regarding mosquitoes as the
,rime source of disease like that as q
subject for mirth. Isn't that literally
rue?
Results of Patient Labor.
These utterly unexpected results
rave followed patient, laborious, dam
,erous, and extraordinarily skillful
work that has enabled the cause of
he disease to be found and the dis
.ases themselves to be combaited with
success. / said danger
,us work. That success had its mar
yrs; doctors laid down their lives to
ecure the results of which l have spo-
ten, showing exactly as much hero
sla hxr&