The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-04-15
HEALTH NEEDS
AND CIVIC ACTION
PhiIanthrophists Are Giving
from INSTRUMENTATION =
Utilization of Health
Knowledge of Most I'M
DOrtance - New Facts
About Medicine Less Nee

civilian H. Allen)
Director Bureau of Municipal Re-
search, New York City,
Exclusive Service the Survey Press
Bureau.)
A New York philanthropist last
year received 400 appeals for money
which amounted to s112, O00, 900. OF
this total SLOTS, 900 was asked for va
rious cooperative purposes and only
$45. 900 or less than one-half of one per
cent. was for preventive health work.
The rest was for hospitals, dispensar-
les. clinics. etc. Although hospitals
received during 1910 in wills and in
large gifts over s1O,OO0,0O0, the Ma
tional Committee of One Hundred
cessity for a national bureau of health.
Does this show that the rich prefer
to spend tEeir money to cure a hand
full rather than to protect townful?
No 1t means they are giving from
misinformation, not from choice. Bal
anced information the promoters ct
health movements should gave.
It is true that health topics which
were deemed impossible for use in the
press ten years ago, are given promi-
nent places. The physician has lost
his monopoly of knowledge of health
laws. Hugh factories have been built
to cater to the new appreciation of
health laws. The advertisements OF
vacuum cleaners, incinerators SAM
tarv drinking fountains, disinfectants
show this fact. However, although
we can be enthusiastic over the strides
recently made in the health move
ment, the work that remains to be
done is great, and there are many
misconceptions now current
zines have devoted miles of space to
medical examination and inspection of
school children a great many people
reasonably well informed are under
the impression that the greater num-
Der of 100000 school children enjoy
the benefits of these widely proclaimed
advanced methods. Yet medical pro-
lection to school children is actually
provided for in but ten States. and in
New York the State education and
health officials believe that it is not
wise to introduce measure provfd-
ing for physical examination of all
children in all schools. Indianapolis
is the only place where children in
private and parochial schools as well
as public schools are assured by law
the benefit of medical inspection and
examination.
2. With but few exceptions the dis
covery of physical defects goes no
further than the statistical records of
the Board of Education or the Board
of Health. In New York city, which
has been heralded as leader in this
field, the city superintendent reports
that last year only a little more than
one-third of those in the schools were
examined and of the defects very
much less than one-ha1f were rem
edied. Even this proportion of de-
fects remedied was obtained by count
ing the health inspectors advice to
use tooth brushes as treatment for de-
fective teeth
3. Millions upon millions have been
poured into hospitals. Now we know
that many of these millions have been
wasted because dental knowledge has
not been applied within hospital and
dispensary walls So much more is
now being done than formerly, by dem
fists to enlist the cooperation of the
layman that the impression has gained
currency that the world is aroused to
the need for dental care Many a
city, however, has had the experience
of New York; school children have
been given physical examination with
out proper inspection of the teeth
records of defective teeth have been
piled UP with almost negligible facili-
ties for securing treatment; children's
teeth have been extracted when they
should have been repaired and clean