Los Angeles herald., 1910-02-13
THE NATIONAL HEALTH
Bv Frederic j. Haskin

done and how much is expended in the
interest of public health. The Ma
tional Association for the Study ana
Prevention of tuberculosis has gath
cred the financial and educattonal
statistics of the nationwide crusade
against the white plague, and finds
that during the year 1909 the various
agencies lighting the disease spent $S,-
1S0 621. 80 in the campaign. over ten
million pieces of literature were circu-
lated and 117,312 patients were treated
for tuberculosis. Sixty-one thousand
of the patients were treated at dis
pensaries. New York takes first rank
in the effort to wipe out this disease.
PENNSYLVANIA second, Massachusetts
third and Illinois, Maryland, New Jer-
sey, California, Colorado, Connecticut
and Ohio in their order.
Recent studies of the death rate from
various ailments reveal startling con-
ditions. They show that Americans
are paying a terrible penalty for over
work. While the death rate from con-
tagious diseases has dropped 40 per
cent since 1880 that from disease OF the
kidneys, heart and brain has increased
SO per cent in the same period. Ihese
figures tell of the tax of hard work
and high living, Kidney diseases,
springing from incorporate eating ana
QI1lkln2 anu IlClI iicllu NciAs 49,
show a death rate that has increased
13t per cent since 1880. There are S4
per cent more fatalities from apopleXy
today than there were thirty years
ago, and 81 per cent more deaths from
heart disease. Meanwhile all con-
tagious diseases are showing rapidly
diminishing death rate.
1t cannot be argued that this increas-
;v,,s pfoI In fhn HiGp1G Of over
work and overindulgence is due to un-
preventahle causes 1t is estimated
that in the United States more than
100000 lives are annually sacrificed ON
the altar of indifference to known laws
of health. More than 3,0O0,000 people
are constantly seriously i'll, hah OF
them suffering from diseases of pre-
Ventable nature.
Once it was supposed that the laws
of health were inexorable, that the
death rate could not be increased nor
diminished. But statistics show that
there are no iron laws for mortality
The span of human life in Europe has
doubled in less than four centuries.
During the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries the average life was length
ened at the rate of four years per CEN
tury, and during the first three-quar-
ters of the nineteenth century the aver
age life heightened at the rate OF nine
years. Since then civilized countries
have made mankind longer-l1Ved at
the rate of seventeen years century.
In Prussia, which is the home of pre-
ventfve medicine. the span of life Is
Iengthening at the rate of twenty
seven years q century. Whether this
increasing span will ultimately bring
men back to the ripe old ages OF
Methuselah and Adam and Noah, no
one can safely predict. DR.. Talmage
once expressed the conviction that II
men returned to the simple life as
gradually as they had travelled away
from it they would eventually live to
be as old as those who lived in the day
of Noah.
1t is shown by mortality tables that
death comes far more frequently
among the poor than among the rich
Insurance figures of industrial COM
panies demonstrate that the death rate
among the poor is from so to 80 per
cent greater than among the well-to-
do. In the unsanitary districts or
Glasgow and Paris the death rate IS
double that of the better sections. The
effect of campaign of education on q
city's mortality is shown by the fact
that since New York undertook the
Improvement of conditions in health
matters it. has reduced its death rate
to the lowest point on record.
The committee of 100 on national
health is seeking to have all life insur-
ance companies join in a campaign IN
favor of disease prevention. DR.. Irv-
ing Fisher of Yale, president of this
committee, declares that the invest
ment of a fraction of l per cent on the
policies carried in an educational pro-
paganda, will SO lengthen the average
life as to make it commercially profit
able to the Insurance companies them
selves, to say nothing of the vast good
that will accrue to the nation at large.
He thinks that by a proper co-ordina-
tion of all the health interests of the
nation headed with a magnificent, con-
solidated national health bureau, such
an onslaught can be made upon the
strongholds of disease as to give the
average American a new lease on life
equivalent to one-third of his present
allotted years.
Tomorrow: Model License League.