The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1909-06-25

before the board OF county cOmmlS
siOners relative to the establishment
of a tuberculosis hospital:
Mankato, June II, l909.-Gentlemer
of the Board of County Commissioners
and all our people who are willing
to help stay the devastations of the
great white plague, the greatest
scourge the human race has ever
known.
To yon here, in particular, as Off
cial guardians of the vital interests
of this great county, and to all with
in its borders who love their fellows
l wish to say as briefly as possible
few things concerning this most
important matter; and, some things
we may do toward stamping out this
great plague, which for centuries has
been the terror of the race. Such a
terror that when it was whispered
He has consumption" the stricken
one is given up as lost. BY many
it was called the "scourge of God
But the race sees now that it was
one of the evil forces in the world
that our first parents were hidden to
"subdue"
In 1882 it was found that the Crea-
tor had not in vain commanded it's
subjugation. Physicians then discov
cred that tuberculosis was a germ dis
ease, the germ isolated, and then they
knew it could be cured.
Hippocrates, the father of medicine,
may have known this twenty three
hundred years ago, for he said of it,
eff the patient is treated from the be-
ginning, he will get WE'LL" And to his
consumptive patients he said: $50 to
the hills and drink goats milk" He
then saw, as We do now, that natures
arms were open wide to an afflicted
world to become the healer of the
nations. But his remedy seemed to
simple for the cure of such myster-
ious and dreadful disease, and, par
ticularly after his own immediate
time, his advice went unheeded.
Since the germ was undiscovered in
1882, the rich and educated have fear
ed tuberculosis less With knowledge
of the facts, and means sufficient, they
have largely protected their own. But
the less fortunate, the great mass of
the human race, it is ruthlessly cut
ting down, even since the great dis
covery, and attending it tremendous
financial loss, among communities, and
throughout all civilized nations. Medi-
cal authorities have estimated the an
nual deaths in the United States at
$4,000 or about 2 out of every 1000
4SO every day, twenty every hour
and one every three minutes. Ina
CINE these 4S0 funeral professions
every day. The broken hearts and brok-
en- homes, the orphaned and helpless
poor, the weeping and wailing for the
lost ones, of this vast grief -stricken
throng, who can estimate? To the
finite mind the sorrow is simply
measureless.
tremendous as the figures are, it
Is easiest to measure the loss in dol
lars. j.. Sloat Fassett of New York,
Commons" estimates the yearly deaths
in the United States from tuberculo-
sis at 100000. But we will use the
lower estimate of $4,000. Then to
make it easier to apply to the state,
the county, the community, We can
safely say two for every 1000 of
its population.
Professor Irving Fisher states that
the money cost of tuberculosis includ-
ing capitalized earning power lost by
death, exceeds $4,000 for each death.
This makes the loss for the United
States $l,400,OOO,OOO of human pro-
ductlve energy each year.
No government on earth could stand
II carrying on a needless war with
equal slaughter. The number killed and
mortally wounded in our war for the
union, = In the northern army, was
llO,O70, and in both armies less than
lS5,oOO, or for the whole four years
war only about the number killed ev-
cry year in the United States bv tuber-
culosis. Yet the world stood aghast
at the fearful carnage of the Ameri-
can Civil War" Eve have read with
bated breath and many a sigh, the
stories OF slaughter done in the Russo
japanese war. But in the year next
after the close of that conflict this
same insatiate giant took as his sa-
crlhce from America a larger number
OF men, women and children than
died from shot and mine and illness in
both the contenting armies"
Though it is as hard to realize this
loss, and to place it, as it is to un-
derstand how the general government
can spend vast amount of the "peo-
pies money" each year, and the peo-
pie not know it, yet it is just as
true In one case as the other. We
can depend upon the figures when ex-
pert medical men, statisticians, politi
cal economists, and insurance men, un-
lite in making them.
But, as Boss Tweed used to say
What are you going to do about it"
lie meant that New York city could
not help herself, but must submit to
i the losses resulting from Tammany's
stealings. Must we also submit, con-
Guiding there is no remedy, no way of