Los Angeles herald., 1909-08-22
MANY DEATHS
PREVENTABLE
PRECAUTIONS WOULD INSURE
LESS MORTALITY
IGNORANCE is CAUSE OF MUCH
FATAL ILLNESS
Life Saving at Home Needed More
Than Crusades Against Epi-
denies and Plaques In
Tropical Countries

Among the most destructive wastes
of nations, preventable death exacts
the heaviest toll Every hour of the
day thousands of deaths occur and
tens of thousands of cases of protra ct
ed illness. A large proportion of these
deaths are due to ignorance. BY ig-
norance, we should exclude all cases
in which death Is due to unknown
causes or conditions. BY ignoring, we
mean simply those cases in which the
causes were preVentable in accordance
with our present knowledge, but the
individuals were ignorant of the knoWl-
edge possessed by others.
Unfortunately, though the knowledge
exists. it is not easy for an individual
to acquire it. Dependable knowledge
would be in great demand, provided
the public could be assured that the
matter did not cover up some decep-
tive advertising. The age is prone to
suspicion, and not without justice. To
read a carefully prepared statement
on the dust nuisance in cities and
find that it is a publication of the gas
companies who are selling gas tar for
dutsless roads, or that movement for
pure food, heralded throughout the
land, is being engineered in the inter-
est of a pickle factory, is not only de-
pressing but repellant. Doubtless,
much good is accomplished by those
commercial movements which travel
under a philanthropic movement. But
the people have a right to demand
that this knowledge shall be system
atized and placed in convenient shape
for all.
Health Officers Useless
With our annual appropriation. of
billions of dollars, by national, state
and municipal government, we have a
right to expect that those agencies
shall handle this matter with efficiency.
AS 1t is, the health officers are almost
everywhere poorly provided for In
general. they are doing little more than
to collect vital statistics. Some of the
progressive communities. however, are
accomplishing a great deal.
To level up all health agencies to the
rank of the most progressive, to elm
mate the duplica ton now involved in
disconnected offices by properly organ
izing a national department of health
and to disseminate in a systematic way
millions of pamphlets containing direc-
tions how to avoid disease, would ac-
complish more in a brief space of time
i'm reducing the death rate than even
the health experts themselves COM
pletely recognize.
If after a most careful investiga-
ton. the Metropolitan Life Insurance
company of New York city has arrived
at the conclusion that a life insurance
company cannot invest the money of
the policy holders at a higher rate Of
interest measured in money than in
circulating through their 1900 agents
millions of pamphlets teaching them
how to live long. 1t is a striking COM
mentary on the inactivity of congress.
Congress has piled billion on billion of
money in breakwaters, lighthouses,
weather services, endless undertakings,
in many of which the money return
is incommensurably small and the
moral return demoralizing to the lobby.
Life-saving on the sea is constitu-
tional How about life-saving on land?
Saving the lives of hogs, cattle, plants,
even cotton and figs, all of it is con-
stitutional. How about human life
saving in the cities?
Wrapped in red tape and guided too
often by commercial motivesf public
health agencies in all nations are apt
to wage war against yellow fever in
for colonies book-worm in the insular
possessions and the plague in the far
off tropics.
Therefore. we should support those
health officers here and there who are
accomplishing SO much at home. To
DR. Johns S. Fulton, secretary of the
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. congress, is que lH6
success of the anti-tubercuosis con-
gress It is the judgment of DR.. Full
ton that an accurate census is our
greatest need. without social book
keeping. even intelligent efforts are
misdirected. The Metropolitan Life In
surance company is able to state that
forty-six per cent of deaths between
twenty and twenty-four years of age
among the policy holders were due to
tuberculosis. Against this loss, this
company is distributing three million
pamphlets on tuberculosis.
IF the government continues derelict
in the field of public health, it is pos
sible that life insurance companies may
usurp this function. Tho preservation
of health is totally distinct problem
from curing the sick The latter cor
responds with wreckng companies on
the ocean. The former to the light
houses along the seacoast. The ma
rine insurance companies have always
supported the government in efforts to
extend the life-saving service. 1t is
hopeful sign that the life insurance
companies are now leading the way for
a national department of health