Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1911-10-28

tains conditions that foster ignorance. What
chance has the poor mother anywhere In TINS
country inform herself with regard to the rear
ing of children? What chance has the poor mother
in New York? She has money with wn1cn
to pay a 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 a 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 VINO
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 were intelligent enough to de-
mand such conveniences, 1t would be intelligent
enough not to need most or them therefore,
we who know enough not to need them
sponsible for the slaughter of the children of
those who won't. And. is not that 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 liar. So long as we have
typhoid fever, shall know that we have not
pure The water supply of nearly every
city is bad part of the year. One city drinks
the sewage of another The contamination could
be prevented of course. but it 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 sure what their children
drink at school. They only hope for the best
and be thankful If they get it.
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 F1exner, director of the Rockefeller
Institute for Medical Research, says 1t does not
follow that the disease will again be epidemic in
the east and the middle west, but he cautions
physicians and parents to be the lookout
Infantile paralysis is caused by living organ
ism so small that 1t readily passes through a
germ-filter of the finest porcelain 1t is believed
that this germ enters and finds lodgment 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 it 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-
tenn 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 Restlessness
and irritability sometimes mark the approach
AT other times there is apathy. Also there may
be a a few days
DIR. William Palmer Lucas of the Harvard Medi-
cal School. who Is of the leading investigators
of the disease, offers this general advice:
Headache general or frontal is not fnfrequent-
IL met with in children old enough to locate the
pain and this is often accompanied with rightly
of the neck. If with any of these nervous mani
festations. there should be trouble in the upper
air passages such bronchitis sore throat. sus
picion should be aroused"
But even If the dwisease. early in its progress
be correctly diagnosed, the best physician cannot
stop it Like scarlet fever. measles and all other
germ diseases. this ailment .nust run its course