The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1910-07-14
STATE VITAL STATISTICS.

odA INODlllSOl. olllCldl Sldle Sldt
i~stican, has compiled the following
information regarding the state o.
the public health during the year
1910:
Only one person died from small
pox in South Dakota in the year
1910.
In that year there were in the
state twelve deaths from measles.
There We're thirty daths from
%whooping cough.
There We're thirty deaths from
scarlet fever.
Smallpox, even in is b~enignant
form, is more deadly and more con
tagious 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, twelve times
as many South Dakotans died from
measles; thirty times as many with
whooping cough and seventy-fve
times as many died from scarlet
fever as died from smallpox.
There is but one answer. and that
answer is the ignorance and the care.
lessness of our people Because OF
our ignorance and our carelessnese
we in a single year sacrificed III OF
our children.
There prevails among us a foolish
and ignorant theory that all children
must suffer from certain diseases and
that the soone they are through
with them the better. Our ancestors
included smallpox among these nee
essary evils. but the aWfulness of its
havoc and the very loathsomeness
of it has taught us that ii is Il thing
to be avoided, to be fought off and
when it does come. to be quaran-
tined and kept secluded until it is
stamped out of the community. The
result of this treatment Of it is that
only n death resulted in a great
state in a single year, while we i'm
molated one hundred and seventeen
Of our youth or the alter of the So
called benienant 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 and mumps that We exercise in
the matter of smallpox that they too
would become of rare o~ccurances and
that the deaths from them would be
reduced to a negligible number? Ger
tainly there is nOt The existence of
these diseases can be practically de
strOyed by the same simple methods
that have driven smallpox away
from us. Is it not worth While to
undertake it? Can South Dakota af-
ford to continue to offer up annual
ly more than a hundred of our loved
ones whose lives may be spared TO
the community if only we will use
the brains and common sense God
has given us.
The deaths resulting from these
~preventable and unnecessary diseases
are after all but the smallest part of
the evil which result from them.
Count over your acquaintance and
discover how many of them suffer
from impaired eyesight. or hearing.
or are famed and deformed through
the effects Of scarlet fever or some
other child's disease? Few indeed
come through them without some
patent injury. The latent injuries
from them cannot be surmised.
1t is doubtful if any child is ever
again as sound physically after
coming through" the ills of child
hood as he might have been had he
escaped all of them. Most burns
leave their scars. Most persons have
about them some defect ~traceable to
the scarlet fever. the measles. the
mumps or the %whooping cough. all
of which could be prevented if only
the community as a whole would ey-
ercise vigilance, cleanliness and in
~telligence such as is employed in the
rare as death from smallpox
Surely the time has come in the
progress Of the world when there
should be an awakening Of the pub
lie conscience and an education of
the popular intelligence until at least
a death from measles should be as
rare as a deth from smallpox.
II some communities boards of
health are doing splendid service
along the educational lines lookiug
10 the eradication Of these disease
Il ought to be at once impressed upon
the mind Of every patient that il is
utterly unnecessary that his child
should ever suffer from one of them
It ought to be made criminal to un
necessarily expose a child to any con