The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1909-09-19


| negro is the greatest soil pollutor,
| and the same infection produces less
| serious physical results in him than
| 1t does in the white person and
therefore he is less likely to be con-
| fined to his home for treatment.
The real negro problem in the
| South is the death rate of the whites, :"
DR.. Stiles says. Il do not believe it
| an eXaggeration to say that for every
white girl a negro assaults the negro
race kills a hundred through the dis
eases it spreads directly or indirectly
| because of insanitary habits; and l
should not take issue with a person
were he to make even a higher .es-
| innate than this. In this connection
We must consider not only hook worm
| disease, but also tuberculosis. ma
| laria, and several other maladies."
The economic importance of uncina-
riasis cannot be realized by those vino
| have not seen q district where the
people are infected. DR.. Stiles says
that there would be no scarcity OF
| labor In the South (such as has COM
PEELED, among other things, the use OF
child labor in the cotton miIIs) II the
death rate were lowered and the
physical condition OF the people i'm
proved.
There are other reasons for the de-
STABILITY Of meeting the scarcity of
| labor in the South with our own flesh
and blood" the doctor says. ''If i'm
migrants go into the South from the
Northern countries of Europe 1t is
going to be difficult to make them
happy under prohibition laws-and
the liquor question there would be
complicated. If the Latins come they
will cross with the negroes, as his
tory shows (witness certain Central
and South American countries), and
in a few generations the South proba
bly, would have a more acute phase Of
the race problem than it now has
stiles Has Supporters.
The government doctors testimony
on the Importance of conquering I'M
Cinariasis does not stand alone DR..
H. F. Harris. of the Georgia State
Board of Health, in announcing that
the state is willing to diagnose cases
and that the cure is amazingly SIM
pie and inexpensive" said last De
cember:
The hook-wOrm is not bit spec
tacuIar. and it doesn't get itself dis
cUsSed in legislative halls, or furious
ly debated in political campaigns. 1t
is satisfied simply with lowering the
working efficiency and the pleasure OF
living of something like 100000 people
in Georgia, and all other Southern
states in like proportion; with amass-
ing a death rate higher than tuber-
culOsis, pneumonia or typhoid fever;
with complicating the labor problem
in the Southern states; with stub
bornly and quite effectually retaTding
the agricultural and industrial deVel-
opment of the section; with nullify-
ing the benefits Of hundreds of thou
sands of dollars spent on education:
and with costing the south, estimated.
in the course of several decades, sew
eral hundred millions Of dollars.
"More serious and closer at hand
than the tariff; more costly, threaten
ing and tangible than the negro ques
weeViI Iaughable in comparison, tire
hook worm is pre-eminentIy the
problem Of the South"
Teach Them Sanitation.
The way to lower the death rate in
the South, to increase the working
efficiency of the people, to heighten
their pleasure Of living. to Straighten
out the labor problem, remove the
handicap on agricultural and indus
trial Development, and make the money
spent on education pay dividends, is
hygiene. The surgeon general might
send men to do this, but, as has been
said. the law gives him no authority.
If these tenant whites" were hogs,
or cattle, or sheep, or horses, or
chickens dying off, the federal gov
eminent could send an army OF men
to save them, for the law makes spe-
cial provision for such work among
dOmesticated animals, the department
Of agriculture having charge Of 1t.
But they are only men and women
and children, and such case as
theirs has not been provided for. All
of Dr. Stiles's Investigations have
been made by the courtesy Of Sur
geon- General Wyman, who has per
mitted him certain absences for brief
periods when he could be spared from
the hygienic laboratory in Washington
all except those which DIR. Stiles
has made in his vacation periods, for
he has spent a considerable portion
of his vacations for years pursuing
his scientific study of the diseases
found in the rural South.
The tenant farmers in that sec
ton" DR.. Stiles says, could be made |
as good as any farmers in the United |
States by the expenditure of say |
100000 a year for twenty years. |
Very little can be done for the grand |
fathers and grandmothers who are |
infected: they will have 10 die OFF. rs |
thew are too old to reform their /
habits. Only about one-half or three
fourths of the present parents can be |
benefited. Practically all Of the chill /
dren can be saved. The theoretical /