Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1909-10-31

in the emergency of epidemics, no
other nation has been and still is so
criminally negligent OF the health
and lives of both soldiers and it's cit
liens. 49, ?, IL T., ,.>''
Bad as it is this record for the
nation, that for most states is little
better. Probably at least one-third
of. those sick and of those taken to
your cemeteries every year, are af-
ficted with, diseases which ought not
to occur. About one of every ten
deaths are from consumption, and
in spite of all the talk about prevent
ing it you now have large tuber-
F~cular population. This is an inner
inted disease, and If all the expec-:
torated matter from every case now
in the state could be collected and
destroyed, as your health officials
and physicians are earnestly trying
to do, until all now sick of either
recover or die, and other necessary
precautions be taken, you would soon
have none but imported cases. You
have a sick and health rate in the
State from typhoid fever every year.
This is not only. preventable, but
the most typical of the filth diseases.
No one can have it except by get
ting into the mouth something from
the bowels or kidneys of some one
who has the disease, usually car
ried there by water, flies or milk.
Medical literature abounds with &C.
counts Of fatal epidemics from all
these sources in cities, towns, coun-
try districts and military camps.
If these discharges from every case
of typhoid fever could be system
atically disinfected clean water and
milk provided, and flies gotten rid
Of, there would be no typhoid fever.
There is also large sick and death
rate from diphtheria, dysentery, scar
let fever, measles, whooping cough
and like diseases, to say nothing Of
the cruel slaughter of babies dur.
ing every hot season from the use of
dirty of adulterated milk. One and
all, these diseases are a disgrace to
our CIVILIZATION. With clean, healthy
living personal and domestic, mu-
nicipal and national, they could be
so effaced as to have only historic
interest. And it would actually cost
less to do this than it does to treat
and nurse the sick and bury the
dead, to say nothing of the pain,
sorrow and loss of life prevented.
When we would have urged legis-
lation for these purposes, otherwise
intelligent congressman and state
legislators have not hesitated to
say that doctors asked for these
laws for their own benefit, without
stopping to consider. that it is far
as they prevent sickness they dim
inish their own incomes, the very
unselfishness of the movement caus-
ing it to be misjudged, as legis-
lators say no other vocation there
working against its own interests.
1t was because ours is above all a
humanitarian calling, charged with
the duty OF saving life, and in daily
contact with the sorrow caused by
sickness and death, that it took up
this work, just as for the same hea-
son 1t does more actual charity every
day in every year than all other
people and organizations put to-
gether. Again, all others may profit
by their discoveries or inventions,
but doctors cannot, their vows re-
curing that they made public, for
the good of humanity. All Of this
has involved altrustic labor with
out parallel in human history, un-
appreciated and DISTRACTED, largely
because Of the public sentiment fos-
tered by the past discord in our
ranks.
Had doctors been as united and
taken the same pains 70 keep in
touch with, and, guide the people
during the formative period of our
government as the lawyers did,
health and medical boards would, al
ways have been as much a part of
the warp and woof of our country,
state and naional machinery as the
courts. They ought to have been
because more important, just in pro-
portion as health and life are more
important than property interests
Since this has been so insisted upon
by political economists. an increas-
ing number of our more thought
full public men are coming to realize,
as Gladstone, Draselli, Bismarck,
Gambetta and other real statesmen
in the older countries did long ago,
that a health department at Wash
fngtOn with 1ahOra fOrfos ord 80