The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-07-19
ILLNESS COSTS
 OVER A BILLION
Professor Fishers Researches Indicate
 That Loss to Nation Every Year.
CAN WIPE OUT TUBERCULOSIS

New Haven, July 19.-That the peo-
 pie of this country are annually throw ing away a sum of money that repre- sents 50 per cent more than it costs
 to operate the governmental cold
 figures, a. billion and a. half-is statis-
 tica1ly shown in Professor Irving Fish CTS new work issued by the govern ment printing office, and entitled "A Report on National Vitality"
 Professor Fisher is a member of the faculty of Yale University, and a. mem Der of the National Conservation com
 mission appointed by Theodore Roose-
 yelt. He is also a member of the
 committee of One Hundred on national health. During the last ten years Pro lessor Fisher has been engaged in col decHng the material that forms this
 important work, and which is now for the first time made public.
 In the connection of national waste in lives Professor Fisher shows that there are three million persons need lessly and continuously i'll in the Uni ted States. and that this> condition
 might well be prevented by strict at tention to even the simplest hygienic
 measures. He shows, also, that tu-
 berculosiS alone is responsible for 500,-
 900 persons continually i'll, and that it is entirely possible that this scourge be wiped out within one generation. Typhoid alone costs the country $35O,- 900, 900, and this is a. disease that can wholly be wiped out by attention to
 eeglected details. In support of this statement, and showing what can be done in an individual instance, the au-
 thor cites the case of the city of Law
 renee, Mass, which, by the introduc- tion of new water supply, reduced
 this typhoid mortality by over 80 per cent.
 It is shown by carefully gathered data, that malaria costs the country
 s100, GOO, GOO, and that this is wholly pre- f<a 11n iT,arf Irrf several cities that undertook, with sue eeSsfu issue, the elimination of the pAfaFia. mosquito.
 |enProfessor Fisher also shows that our
 present wasteful policy is easily re-
 mediable, and cites Professor T. S.
 Lambart, who, in his Sources of Lon
 gevity," stated '"That it costs no more
 to raise a man capable of living for has not the capacity of living to be 40 years old"
 The subject of eugenics, or marriage
 selection, is also discussed at length, and instances of the beneficial effects
 of the operation of the law in Indiana are startlingly shown, it being stated
 that by this law no fewer than 800 per
 sons who were. shown to be incurable of confirmed degenerate tendencies had been Sterilized. In support of the eff
 ficacy of this law, the author takes up the history of two famous criminal families, the "Jukes'' and 'The House of Ishmael.'' and shows that the form
 CT, out of ], 200 descendants in 75 years, furnished 557 criminals who spent an
 aggregate of 2,300 years in ja-ils and
 poOr-houSeS.
 Professor Fisher says:
 ''The gain or lengthening and
 strengthening of the life which it
 measures can be secured through med
 ical investigation and practice, restric- I.tioQ of the labor of women and chil- drA, the education of both public and l rlri fa. hU0iar,o 1oh ir,or, ing the, efficiency of our municipal,
 state and national health service.''