Willmar tribune., 1909-09-01

W VAtS SVSS0ASSOASASa sASN~~N00Ay AVA
tubercular development are a pro-
per soil and the seed; the proper
soil being a weakened constitution.
the seed being the tubercle bacilli.
Anything that weakens the con-
stitution may be called an indirect
causative factor in tuberculosis.
The poor live poorly. They do
not have proper or sufficient food.
They live in small, often dark
and unsanitary rooms, and in tene-
ment buildings that may be crowd
ed. Their income is too small to
do better. As rule ignorance and
carelessness go with poverty and
therefore we find that the food that
is used is improperly cooked, that
dirt abounds. that fresh air is ta-
booed; that children are woefully
neglected and badly fed. The mo-
ther in the poor family is usually
overworked and breaks down in
general health. She has too many
children and that fact in itself in
tensifies the existing want. All
these conditions are direct aids in
making candidates for tuberculosis.
Add together poverty, ignorance
and tuberculosis and you have
Dad mess which any community,
out of consideration for it's own
safety, dare not ignore for long.
Consider that the average work.
ingman has not the say as to con-
ditions in the shop in which he
works; that he must accept unsani-
tary conditions. dust. darkness, i'm
proper toilet facilities, etc., and
you see that he may run right into
hotbeds of tuberculosis. If there
is union in his trade. probably
it will bring about better condi-
tions. But not all unions even, are
alive to the needs of their shops
along this very line. They require
instruction as do the employers.
The man, who for lack of money
must live in lodging houses, is in
very great danger from the white
plague by reason of the unsanitary
conditions in these places. They
are veritable breeding holes for
diseases of all kinds, especially
venereal and tubercular. 1t is said
that sixty thousand men go through
the Minneapolis lodging houses an
nnually and not an Inspector from
the city or state health department
ever gets inside. except in some
emergency like smallpox. In some
of the houses the bed linen is
changed only when it is black. In
many, there are piles of filth under
beds and in corners. In many
semi mi-darkness prevails in the sleep
ing quarters, the sun never reach
ing some portions at all. Here GER
tainly are conditions that should
not exist. On the whole, these
lodging houses harbor honest,
foreign working-men whose earn
ings are too small to buy them bet
ter living quarters. They build
our railroads, harvest cur crops,
and cut our timber.
Are we going to show our apprecia-
tion of their service in our social
economy by dealing out to them
disease and death? In Chicago in
five years from 100 lodging houses
679 hopeless and destitute cases of
tuberculosis were sent to the free
tuberculosis hospital at the poor
farm. Others doubtless went to no
hospital or left town. so that this
total does not represent all cases
that were in these lodging houses
during that time.
! AS to the relation between the
amount Of earnings and tuberculo-
sis, studies have been made in var.
ious countries. For example, in
Hamburg, Germany, it. has been
found to be generally true for 8
number of years that the number o1
deaths from tuberculosis varies in.
versely as the income. The same
} has been found true in Vienna
where in 1902 in Dist. No. /, the
best in the city, the death rate
from tuberculosis was II per 10, ,OO(
of the population, and the income
tax payers numbered Is per cent
of the population; whereas in Dis.
trict No, 10, the worst part o1
town, the death rate was no les!
than 67 per 10000 and the income
tax payers 9.2 per cent of the pop
: ulaiont. In 1907 our Associated
: Charities nurses had 81 male tuber
> cul0sis cases, of which an even 81
pei. cent were common laborers, thu
poorest paid class of workers.
Moreover, statistics the worl(
) over show that this enemy strike!
: down its victims in tiendish styl,
, just at the period when they shoult
2 be most useful to their families ant
to society and when they should bt
e enjoying the fullest vigor of man
: hood and womanhood. This periot
is from 20 to As years. Out of 13'
e patients handled by our nurses las
year sc or 62.7 per cent were O.
e these ages. lin whisper let it b,
8 said that 18 were little children be