The Bon Homme County independent. [volume] (Tabor, S.D.) 1904-1913, 1910-07-07
ROBINSON EXPLODES
DOMESTIC THEORY
Not Necessary to Offer III
Children as Sacrifice to
Diseases of Youth.
nv poANE

Pierre, S. D., July 6.-One person
only died from smallpox in Sou Da-
kota In the year 1903.
In that year there were In this state
IL deaths from measles.
There were 80 deaths from whooping
cough.
fever.
Smallpox, even in its benignant form.
is more deadly and more contagious
than measles. Smallpox is more deadly
and more infectious than whooping
cough. 1t is equally as deadly and
equally as contagious as scarlet fever.
Yet in a single year IL times as
many South Dakotans died from
measles. Thirty time as many with
whooping cough and 75 times as many
died from scarlet fever as died from
smallpox.
What Is the reason for this? Why
did the pestilent smallpox get but n
victim while measles got IL. w~hooping
cough 80 and scarlet fever rs?
There is but one answer, and that
answer is the ignorance and the care
lessness Of our people. Because OF our
| Ignorance and our carelessness we, in
a single year. sacrificed III of u
children.
There prevails among us a foolish
and ignorant theory that all children
must suffer from certain diseases and
lldI Tic julio tlICJ - 81 oeoh ahAA
them the better. Our ancestors includ-
ed smallpox among these necessary
/ evils, but the awfulness of its have
and the very loathsomeness of 1t has
taught us that 1t is a thing to be
avoided, to be fought off, and when 1t
does come to be ~quarantined and kept
secluded until 1t is stamped out of the
community. The result of this treat
ment. Of it is that only one death re-
suited in a great state in a single year,
while we inundated III Of our youth on
the altar of the so-called benignant ills
of childhood.
Can there be any doubt that If we
used the same intelligence and the
same care in the treatment of measles,
whooping cough, scarlet fever n
humps that we exercise in the matter
of smallpox that they, too, would be-
come rare occurrence and that the
deaths from them would be reduced
to a negligible number? Certainly there
is not. The existence of these disease
can be practically destroyed by the
same simple methods that have driven
smallpox away from us. Is 1T not worth
while to undertake 1t? Car South Da-
kota afford to continue to offer up an
hually more than a hundred Of our
loved ones whose lives may be spared
to the community. II only we will use
the brains and the common sense o
has given us?
The deaths resulting from these pre-
ventable and unnecessary diseases are
after all but the smallest part Of the
evil which result from them. Count
over your ac~quaintances and discover
how many of them suffer from i'm
paired eyesight, OF hearing, or are
famed and deformed through h effects
Of scarlet fever OF some other child's
disease? Few indeed come through
them without some latent injury. The
latent injuries from them can only be
surmised.
It is doubtful IL any child is ever
again as sound physically after com
Ing through" the ills of childhood as
he might have been had he escaped
all Of them. Most burns leave their
scars. Most persons a about them
some defect traceable to sacrlet fever,
measles, mumps or whooping cough,
all of which could be prevented IL only
the community, as a whole, would eXer-
else v~igilence, cleanliness and intelli-
gence such as is employed in the mat
ter of smallpox.
Surely the time has come in the prog
ress of the world when there should
be an awakening of the public con-
science and an education OF the popu-
lar intelligence until at least a death
from measles should be as rare as a
death from smallpox.
In some communities boards of
health are doing splendid service along
the educational lines looking to the
eradication Of these diseases. It ought
to be at once impressed upon the
mind of every parent that 1t Is utterly
unnecessary that his child should ever
suffer from one Of them. 1t ought to
be made criminal to unnecessarily ex-
pose a child to any contagious disease
or to allow II to go unq~uarantineo.
II ought to be regarded as h shame
of South Dakota that III of our children
were carried to their raves in one year
NV ills we could have easily prevented.