The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-05-23

and in spite of the rapid advances, of the professional, and the heroism and individual worth of its members, this is almost as strong as it was a gener- ation ago. I speak in the light of an | experience which has come to few men. have been a state health ofh- | cial, and as such, represented my pro- fession before my legislature for 30 i years, and often before the congress at Washington. Once or twice al-
 most every day for six years I have | spoken on this subject to popular au- | diences in every section of the Union, 1 laymen discussing 1t freely at the close | of my talks. In this way have been able to make study of doctors and what the people think of them in a l very broad way, have found this sen l timent almost universal, and it is on this account mainly, that it has been | so difficult for us to secure and en- | force our legislation.
 Criminal Negligence.
 You will first be shown how this feeling against doctors has affected | us as nation. For lack of authority
 for medical officers during our war with Spain, we lost 16 of our soldiers from preventable disease for every one l lying as a result of battle, and S5 of | each 100 were inmates of the hospi- tals. During the longer and more se-
 were war in Manchuria, with full au-
 thority and rank for their doctors, Japan lost but one man from disease
 for every four killed in battle, and but 15 of 100 were in the hospitals. We had known of this danger to our
 armies, and had begged for proper authority for our army surgeons, for 25 years, and since these wars, with
 the object lessons of Cuba and Man churia before the congress and coun- try we are still begging, and practi- I cally the same dangers yet face our
 armies in the event of a foreign war.
 Facts of the same kind almost without number might be given to show that except in the emergency of epidemicS,
 no other nation has been and still is so criminally negligent of the health and
 lives of both it's soldiers and its citi- zens.
 Bad as is this record for the nation,
 that for most states is little better.
 Probably at least, one-third of those sick and of those taken to your cem-
 eteries every year are afflicted with
 diseases which ought not to occur. About one of every ten deaths are
 from consumption, and in spite of all
 the talk about preventing it, you now have a large tubercular population. This is not an inherited disease, and if all the expectorated matter from every case now in the state could be collected and destroyed, as your health officials and physicians are
 earnestly trying to do, until all now sick of it either recover or die, and
 other necessary precautions be taken.
 you would soon have none put import
 ed cases. You have a large sick ana
 death rate in the state from typhoid fever every year. This Is not o1I1y 6
 preventable, but the most typical or the filth diseases. No one can nave ! it except by getting into the mouth something from the bowels or kid neys of some one who has the disease,
 usually carried there by water, h\S
 or milk. Medical literature abounds
 with accounts of fatal epidemics from all these sources in cities, towns, coun-
 try districts and military camps. If
 these discharges from every case of
 typhoid fever could be systematically
 disinfected, clean water and milk pro- vided, and flies gotten rid of, there
 would be no typhoid fever. There
 is also a large sick and death .rate from diphtheria, dysentery, scarlet fever, measles, whooping cough and
 like diseases, to say nothing of the cruel slaughter of babies during every
 hot season from the use of dirty or adulterated milk. One and all, these diseases are a disgrace to our civillza-
 llOu. Wlln ClSdIl, H0dllAy llNlhSB pCA- sonal and domestic municipal and na-
 tional, they could be so effacted as to
 have only historic interest. And it
 would actually cost less to do this than it does to treat and nurse the sick
 and bury the dead, to say nothing of the pain, sorrow and loss of life pre- vented.
 Humanitarian Calling.
 When we have urged legislation for
 those otherwise intelligent congressman and state legislators have not hesitated to say that doctors asked
 for these laws for their own benefit,
 without stopping to consider that in so far as they prevent sickness they
 diminish their own incomes, the very
 unselfishness of the movement causing it to be misjudged, as legislators saw no other vocation there working against it's own interests. It was be- cause ours is above all a humanitarian
 calling, charged with the duty of sav- ing life, and in daily contact with the
 sorrow caused by sickness and death,
 that it took up this work, just as for
 the same reason it does more actual
 charity every day in every year than all other people and organizations put
 together. Again, all others may pro- fit by their discoveries or inventions, but doctors cannot, their vows re-
 quiring that they be made public for the good of humanity. All or thlS has involved altrustic labor without par
 allel in human history, unappreciated and obstructed, largely because of the public sentiment fostered by the past discOrd in our ranks.
 Board of Health Necessary.
 Had doctors been as united and taken the same pains to keep in touch
 with, and guide the people during the formative period of our government as the lawyers did, health and medi- cal boards would always have been as
 much a part of the warp and wool of
 our county, state and national ma chinery as the courts. They ought to have been because more important,
 just in proportion as health and life are more important than property in kQ ns> r,,1cxako fTco nn1vH