The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-05-31

1 There is about to be started fin New Haven a movement for the erection of better tenements and it is boped that this movement combined with co., ucation in household economies or good housekeeping, and the movement for better and stricter laws may arrest the tendency toward overcrowding which has sadly manifested itself in this city. The use of public schools as a center asd medium for dissemin- ating health education S1Ould not go unmentioned. In some respects this IS the most promising of all means If building up healthy citizens in the next generation. In order to secure our health reforms we need QJ to ed- ucate public sentiment, ajid @ 10 abolish our present multiple board of health and sobstIture single headed board. No board constituted ss orrs is however capahls its members may he individually, cln be efncsent DGr beard is certainly inefficient and it's 1rl- efficiency is due to division of Tespon- sibility rather than to individual in capacity of it's members or the health officer. Of course to get better health administration we need to make great CT appropriations for the purpose, but these appropriations would be amply justified.
 The returns which could he reaped from a better health administration and better health laws are incalculable Even on a purely commercial basis hygiene pays. Dr. Britton and others have shown that the cost of extern1in- ating malaria by draining and oilins the marshes is repaid in actual cash many times over by better crops. bet ter land values, and better earning power of the population. When Gay lord Farm sanatorium was establish ed six years ago, a local hard-headed cynical business man. in refusing to
 
 Foster if he really thought that this attempt to fight tuberculosis would pay" We are now prepared to sn- Swer his question in the same hard. cold cash terms. The treatment Of patients has cost thus far s155000 and the patients whose lives were thus saw ed as bread winners for their farnf~ lies have earned more than twice as much, namely s316,00 besides having left a potential earning capacity con- servatively appraised at s1.620,000. Ev- en this does not exhaust the comrneT- cial value of the benefits derived from the expenditure of the s155,000. In fact, the chief benefit has not been included; this is the spread of the gOs- pei of health. Tuberculosis fs one of the sIowest and most expensive of diseases and if a return of 13 fold on the investment can be obtained with in a few years in the fight against tuberculosis, a far larger return can be obtained in fighting other diseases. In fact equally definite and convincing data for other diseases could be giv- en.
 In the light of these facts how triv- ial seem the objections to making bet ter health appropriations on the plea of saving the taxpayers money or avoiding the hardship or expense to the owner of privy vault or the coI- lector of garbage. Such a view is penny wise and pound foolish; it is saw ing the penny to the taxpayer, ths property owner or the contractor and losing the pound to the city of New Haven. It is sometimes said that the greatest enemy of hygiene is commer- cialism, but this is misleading state ment
 The truth is that the greatest friend of commercialism is hygiene. The real conflict is between the small in- terests of the few and the large hnan- In broad way better health is not a means of spending money but means of earning money. The cour- ageous administration of public health office will not hurt but help the commercial interests of the com munity. It is better to advertise by showing a good health conditions than by concealing the existence of bad health conditions. In Springfield, H.. the health officer has had the courage to publish a map showing the location of the privy vault throughout the city. Doubtless he has temporarily injured the value of property on these streets, but real estate men have used his map to enhance the value of property on other streets. Life insurance com janies are now trying to make money by lengthening human life and some municipalities are trying to make non- ey by establishing better health con ditions. The enterprising town of Win field, Kan, boasts of having more batr tubs and sleeping porches than aBy town in Kansas. hope the day will come when New Haven will have real reason to boast of having not only good water supply but a good milk supply, good air supply Gin the ten ements as well as elsewhere), good meat supply and a low death rate.