The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1909-05-15
CANNON LAUGHS AT
OLD AGE THEORY
Speaker Derides DR.. 0sler at
Session of National Tu=
bercuIosis Congress
Physicians Plead for Children
Endangered by Contact
With Disease

WASHINGTON, May 14.-Speaker
Cannon is not bit afraid of DR.. Osler
and his old age theory. He told DIR.
Osler so today during an address be-
fore the National Association for the
Study and Prevention OF Tuberculosis
DIR. OsIer, I have reached the age of
81. and shake my fist in your face"
said Cannon, and DR.. Osler laughed
heartily.
Cannon harked back to the days
of his childhood, when bathtubs were
almost unheard of and when the snow
would sift in and cover those lying in
bed we had plenty of fresh air then
on the Wabash and everywhere on the
frontier before the railroads. he said.
Cannon favored more Fairgrounds
for children, but urged that the legis-
lator be dealt with gently if he did not
do everything wanted of him.
OSLER URGES ACTIVITY
DIR. Osler said tuberculosis no longer
was a problem of the doctors, and that
it probably would take two or three
genera tions to reduce its ravages TO the
present rate of typhoid.
Three things remained to be done,
said DIR. Osler. The first was to keep
the public awake, the second to obtain
more money and the third to arouse the
interest of more men and women, be-
cause the campaign was no longer one
entirely for the doctors.
whether tuberculosis will be finally
eradicated" he said, lis even an open
question, but when we think of what
has been done in one generation-how
the mortality in many places has been
reduced more than so per cent, indeed.
in some places, more than 100 per cent
1t is battle OF hope, with victory in
sight"
INFECTION OF CHILDREN
A tendency to overrate the danger
to children from milk from tubercu-
Iosis cattle was extensively treated
in a joint paper by Drs. Henry Shaw
and Arthur T. Laird of Albany. N. Y,
who took the position that the atten-
tion of the public should not be di-
verted from the great and real danger
of human contagion.
If, they argued, tuberculosis milk
was so virulent as so many declared,
it was difficult to conceive how any
children escaped infection. The asso-
citation of the child with tuberculosis
parents or other consumptives, they
said was a matter of such Importance
in the diagnosis as well as in the pre-
vention of the disease that every mem
Der of tuberculosis family should be
examined as a matter of routine.
CABINET PLAN OPPOSED
A resolution was presented by Health
officer Greensfelder of st. Louis, urg-
ing the creation of the office of secre-
tary of health in the cabinet of the
president.
Brigadier General George A. Stern
berg, former surgeon general of the
army. opposed the creation of such an
Office, saying that he did not believe
in having a political doctor in charge
of the nations health.
The resolution was laid on the table
by a decisive vote and a substitute
adopted pledging the associations sup
port to a proposition for the centrali-
zation of the governments health ac-
tivities.
The following officers were elected
President, DR.. +. j. Janeway New
York; first vice president. Edward T.
Devine. New York; second vice presi-
dent. DIR. Henry Sewell Denver; treas
urer, DR.. George NJ. sternberg. Wash
ington.