The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-05-23
Prevention Of
 Disease Is The
 Goal Of Science
! Address by Dr. J. M. Mccormack Before Large Audience in
 North Church

Dr. J. N Mccormack, MD., of Bowling Green, Ky, delivered an in teresting address last evening before a large audience at the North Con- gregational church on, The New Gospel of Health" He declared that large proportion of the diseases of today are preventable and that the march to the cemetery comes far too early for the average citizen. Pre- ventatiye measures are the true triumphs of medical science, he said pr. McCormack's address was as follows:
 The greatest asset of any nation, its most important resource to be considered, is that represented in it's vigorous population, its children, wo- l men and men. In fact, farms, mines, forests, factories and similar things called wealth, have little more than an abstract value. except as there is such a population to operate and en- ! Joy them. The drain upon this asset < in this country from diseases now known to be preventable, and as a result of vicious and immoral living, is estimated at more than one-third of the entire sick and death rate every year. The recognition of this drain and its causes. and a comparative study of the results of better sanita- ton in other countries, and in some sections of our own country, have so impressed economists, teachers and other leaders of thought, that the Am erican Health league, a lay organiZa- formed, with headquarters at Yale, to arouse and educate public senV- ment on the subject
 These economists figure that there is an average of 100000 deaths in this country every year, with 4,200, 900 cases of sickness, affecting the com fort and happiness of 5,0O0,00O homes land 25,ooo,00O people. After careful study they tell us that over one-third of this enormous sick and death rate, a tax upon the people almost beyond calculation, can and should be pre- vented. As an argument for peace, it is shown that 21O,000 men were killed of the Civil war. As an argument for healthier living, it is shown that 750,- 900 persons have died from tubercu- losis in the last five years and that about 100000 are constantly sick of it. They show 250,000 deaths and 2,500,000 sick from typhoid fever in the same period, and a large sick and death rate from diphtheria, measles, scarlet fever and other diseases pre- ventable with present knowledge, and urge that with proper governmental assistance, this life-saving knowledge should be constantly extended. It is then shown that in ten years our na- tional government has expended s4O,- oo0.o00, and now proposes to appro- priate $250, OOO,000 more, to prevent tick fever in cattle, cholera in hogs
 and chickens, pests to crops and trees, and to protect other interests having money value, while in all it's history it has never spent dollar or lifted a hand to protect the people from these far more important domestic pes- tilences. There are experts and funds in abundance at Washington to go anywhere for investigation, or to pre- pare literature in regard to any anil . mai or plant disease, any agricultural resource, water power, or other con- dition affecting commercial interests. | but the citizen will inquire in vain for information about protecting his family from typhoid fever or other sickness
 Health Reforms Urged.
 Most of these facts are well known 1 to medical men. They have long in- J sisted that good health can and should
 ,, be made more contagious than sick ness, and, in direct conflict with their I own interests, have urged the health I reforms which would bring it all about, but in most states, and in the 1 nation, have met almost constant in- I difference or anta gOniSm from both legislative bodies and the people. This lwas in part, because 10 the laity med
 icine has always been an occult, mys- 1 tic science, and still more because until recent years, ours has been a
 discordant profession. This discord I was in small part between the differ ] ent systems of practice, but far more 'between physicians competing for the
 same practice, and was often fostered by their lay friends. The same thing < existed in the clergy until recent years, dividing the religious world in- X to hostile camps, and in all the other i isolted vacations, lawyers alone liv- z ing in the aggregate and escaping this
 curse.
 few years ago we were aroused to the enormity of this evil, to it's
 baneful effects upon us and the peo-
 pie, we banded ourselves together for
 its extermina tion, probably never be- 2 fore did a reform so sweep a profess
 sion, and now, regardless of schools
 or pathies, ours is rapidly becoming
 one of the most harmonious of call
 ;ngs This discord had existed so
 long, however, that it created a senti- ] ment, a prejudice, if you will, against
 doctors, which is a habit of thought
 with most people, except as to their own physician, which did not disap-
 pear with the removal of the cause,