Meade County news. [volume] (Meade, Kan.) 1900-1918, 1911-11-02

tains conditions that foster ignorance What
chance has the poor mother anywhere in this
country to inform herself with regard to the rear
ing of children? What chance has the poor mother
in New York? She has no money with which
to pay physician for consultation. lie she went
to physician paid by the city, she would hardly
know what to do with her children while she
was away. She might leave them at day nursery
it is true; but did you ever think how many more
day nurseries and how many more city physicians
should have to have If every mother who
needs to know how to rear her children were to
adopt this plan? We should have to have thou
sands and tens of thousands more Of each And,
If the community intelligent enough to de-
mand such conveniences it would be intelligent
enough not to need most of them. Therefore,
who know enough not to need them are re-
sponsibe for the slaughter of the children OF
those who won't. And, is not that a pleasant
thought?
How can intelligence prevail against the neglect
of communities to keep their water supplies pure?
Almost every city claims to have pure water.
Almost every city is a liar So long as we have
typhoid fever, shall know that we have not
pure water The water supply of nearly every
city is bad part of the year. One city drinks
the sewage of another. The contemplation could
be prevented, of course, but 1t isn't. Detroit, for
instance will have another outbreak of typhoid
fever next fall Scores, If not hundreds will die,
and the following autumn, there will be another
outbreak Careful parents, of course can give
their children only boiled water to drink at home,
but they cannot be what their children
drink at school. They can only hope for the best
and be thankful If they get 1t.
The most deadly disease that threatens chill.
dren this summer is infantile paralysis In June,
reports came from the south that the disease had
broken out in several widely separated places.
Dr. Simon Flexner, director Of the Rockefeller
Institute for Medical Research says 1t does not
kboAk will he onfdo r1tn in
the east and the middle west. but he cautions
physicians and parents to be on the lookout
Infantile paralysis is caused by living organ
ism so small that 1t readily passes through
germ-hter of the finest porcelain. It is believed
that this germ enters and finds Judgment in the
nose and that children whose noses are not clean
are most likely to become infected.
From experiments made upon monkeys at
Rockefeller Institute 1t is known that the average
period of incubation is little less than ten days;
that is to say, definite symptoms OF the disease
appear ten days after the germ enters the sys-
TEN, though illness has sometimes followed in
four days.
The first symptoms of the disease appear to
vary somewhat with the individual. Also. no
individual has all of the symptoms. Restessness
and irritability sometimes mark the approach.
At other times there is apathy. Also there may
be low fever for few days.
Dr. William Palmer Lucas of the Harvard Medi-
cal School, who Is one OF theIleadlng Investigators
Of the disease, offers this general advice:
Headache, general or frontal, is not infrequent-
y met with in children old enough to locate the
pain and this Is often accompanied with rigidty
of the neck. Ifswith any Of these nervous mani
festations, there should be trouble in the upper
air passages, such bronchitis or sore throat sus
picion should be aroused"
But even If the dwisease, early in its progress,
be correctly diagnosed, the best physician cannot
stop 1t. Like scarlet fever. measles and all other
germ diseases, this ailment must run its course.