The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-01-19
CONSERVING THE
 PUBLIC HEALTH
A Scientific Movement to Make Life Longer Has Evolved Into a National Health Committee that Is Accomplishing Things.
Lewis B. Palmer.

Exclusive Service The Survey Press
 Bureau.)
 While Professor of economies at Yale, pr. J. Pease Norton made an address that resulted in something more than it's reprint in a tiresome convention volume. Dr. Norton was speaking on the advisability of a Ma tional Health Department and stat ed that while the Department of Agri- culture spends $7,O0O,000 a year on plant health and animal health, con- gress does not appropriate directly with the exception of the work done by Doctors Wiley, Atwater and Bene- dict, a single cent for promoting the we'll being of babies.
 ''ThousandS have been expended in stamping out cholera among swine. Not one dollar was ever devoted for eradicating pneumonia among human beings. Hundreds of thousands are consumed in saving the lives of elm trees from the attacks of beetles-in warning farmers again the blights af- fcetingf potato plants and in import ing Sicilian bugs to fertilize fig blos- soms in California;
 Dr. Pease stated that a million and a half persons must die in the United States during the next twelve months that equivalent to 4,2O0,000 persons will be constantly sick and that 5000
 
 sons will be mnade more or less wretched by death and sickness.
 In a great measure as result of this speech, committee on National Health was organized. It really ori- ginated in the medical profession some twenty years ago but it's recent re- ported success has been largely due to the reinforcement received from laymen. The tuberculosis crusade has now become largely lay movement and to it's success is doubtless due in part the growth and strength of the work for a National Health bureau and this growth and strength is no where more forcibly indicated than in President Taft's last message where he calls attention to the fact that flor a considerable period move ment has been gathering strength es- pecially among the members of the medical profession in favor of a concentration of the instruments of the national government which have to do with the promotion of public health"
 This public health organization, known as the Committee of One Hun dred consists of the leading health men in the United States, outside of the medical profession, although a few physicians are also included, repre- senting medical hygienic organization.
  campaign Of education, and has dis tributed (4) different publications. The total number of pieces of mail matter sent out is nearly a million. Newspaper clippings in the office of the committee in New Haven, nearly fill two enormous scrap books of 500 pages each. An equally important branch of publicity is that through the magazines; several of which give regular space to questions of health; and as a New York paper recently had it, one of the chief joys of the circulation managers heart lies in the subscription possibilities of articles on tuberculosis, hook-worm, pellagra cancer and other grim maladies. It was largely through the work of the Committee of One Hundred that health to his Conservation program and invited the president of the Com- mittee to become a member of the Conservation Commission and to write a report on this aspect of conserva- tion. His Commission on Country Life also included public health ques- tions in it's report. It was undoubt- last report that MT. Rockefeller was spurred to make his famous gift of one million dollars to eliminate the hook worm disease on the southern farms.
 Recently the committee proposed to the Association of Life Insurance Presidents that it was just as essen tial to their interests to decrease death rates and lengthen life, as it was for fire insurance or boiler explo- sion insurance people to prevent fires and explosions. It was shown that over 40 per cent of the deaths which now occur could be postponed, at an