Omaha daily bee., 1910-02-11
Some Things You Want to Kn wv
The National Health.

education Of public sentiment in favor Of
proper health measures.
one scarcely realizes how much is done
and how much is expended In the interest
OF public health. The National Association
for the Study and Prevention Of Tubercu-
losis has gathered the financial and edu-
cational statistics OF the nationwide cru
SADIE against the white plague, and finds
hat during the year Of 1903 the various
agencies fighting the disease spent $780,
62l@ In the campaign. over 100000
pieces OF literature we're circulated. and
117,312 patients were treated for tubercu-
losis. Sixty-one thousand OF the patients
were treated at dispensaries. New York
takes first rank in the effort to wipe out
this disease. Pennsylvania second, Massa-
chussets third and Illinois, Maryland, New
Jersey, California, Colorado, Connecticut
ana Ohio in their order.
Recent studies OF the death rate from
various ailments reveal startling condi-
tions. They show that Americans are pay
ing q terrible penalty for Overwork. While
the death rate from contagious diseases
has dropped ~ per cent since 1850, that
from diseases Of the kidneys, heart and
brain has increased 80 per cent in the same
period. These figures tell OF the tax Of
hard work and high living. Kidney dis
eases, springing from Incorporate eating
and drinking and from hard work, now
show a death rate that has increased 1871
per cent since 1880. There are 81 per cent
more fatalities from apoplexy today than
there were thirty years ago and 81 per cent
more deaths from heart disease. Mean
while all contagious diseases are showing
q rapidly diminishing death rate.
1t annot be argued that this increasing
mortality in the diseases of overwork and
oveTindulgenoe Is due to unpreventable
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 5000, 900
people are constantly seriously Ill, half Of
them suffering from diseases of a preven-
table nature.
once it was IMPOSED 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 CEN
turtles. During the seventeenth and eigh-
teenth centuries the average life was
heightened at the rate Of four years per
century, and during the first t~hree-quarters
of the nineteenth century the average life
Heightened at the rate of nine years. Since
then civilized countries have made man
kind. longer-lived at the rate of seventeen
years a century. In Prussia, which is the
home Of preventive medicine, the span Of
life is ~lengthening at the rate of twenty
seven years a century. Whether this in
creasing span will ultimately bring men
back to the ripe old yes of Methuselah
Ind Adam and Noah no one can safely
predict. DR.. Talmage once expressed the
conviction that II men returned to the sim
pie life as gradually as they had Travelled
away from 1t they would eventually live TO
be as old as those who lived in the day OF
Noah. . s1f &C.
1t IL shown by mortality tables that death
comes far more frequently among the poor
than among the rich. Insurance figures OF
industrial companies demonstrate that the
death rate among the poorsfs from 80 to 81
per cent greater than among the well-to-
DO. In the unsanitary districts of Glasgow
and Paris the death rate lsSdoAble that. OF
. the better sections The effecta of a cam
paign of education" on a. Scity's mortality
is shown by the fact that since New York
undertook the improvement Of conditions
In health matters, 1t has reduced it's death
rate to the lowest point on record.
The committee of one hundred on national
health Is seeking to have all life insurance
companies join in a campaign in favor OF
disease prevention. DR.. Irving Fisher OF
Yale, president Of this committee, declares
\ that the investment Of a fraction of 1 per
cent on the policies carried in an educa.
tIohal propaganda will so e~lengthen the
average life as to make 1t commercially
profitable to the insurance ompanies them.
selves. to say nothing of the vast good that
win accrue to the nation at large. He
thinks that by a proper coordination OF
all the health interests OF the nation
headed with a magnificent. consolidated
national health bureau, such an onslaught
can be made upon the ~strongholds of dis.
ease as 10 give the average American a
new lease on life equivalent to one-third OF
his present allotted years.
BY FREDERIC ]. RASKm,
TOmorrow-Modsl License League.