The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-09-25
REGULATE
 REFUSE DISPOSAL Congress Should Make High
 ways of Travel Clean FARMERS HEALTHY
Colonel Gorgas Unable to Address the Congress and Tell How He ? Made the the Canal Zone
 Inhabitable

Washington, D. e., September 24.- Congress not only has the authority under the constitution but is morally obliged to see to 1t that the highways of the country, both land and water ways. are not made vehicles for the dissemination of disease and health de- clared Judge Judson c. Clements, of the interstate commerce commission today addressing the fifth Interna- tional Congress of Hygiene and Dem ograhy.
 Congress having the power, 1t was up to the medical profession and to the people, Judge Clements added, to decide whether the time had come yhen public health required that laws be passed governing the disposal of refuse from passing trains and boats.
 That farmers are the most healthful- ly occupied class of workers was the statement made tonight by Dr. Jacques Bertillon. chief of the bureau of mu- nicipal statistics, Paris. who has just made a comprehensive study of mortal lty and its causes among the profess sion.
 "The least healthy persons" he said, t'are those engaged in handling liquor We may say that all causes of death. except accidents are extraordinarily frequent for this group. Priests and professors separate themselves from the other liberal professions by the rarity of liver and kidney diseases"
 There is no normal food; both the nature and the quantity must depend on the work and character of the indi- vidual, said Dr. Max Rubner of Der lin, president of the permanent com- mittee. As Tor meat versus vegetable IL l.. alr nxrrl edged. there is scientific basis for considering that plant foods contain the principle food clements
 Gorgas Does Not Speak
 Col. w. c. Gorgas, the man who made the Panama canal zone habitable, was scheduled today to tell how it was done. but at the 11th minute word was re- ceived that as the United States Con- gress at its last session had refused to appoint committee to appropriate expense money for the officers the ad- dress could not be delivered.
 T. Kennard Thomsan, vice president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers of New York, today ad vanced the conclusion that many cases of what is called caisson disease were due not so much to work in com pressed air as they were to work in foul atmospheres. Mir. Thomson said that foul atmosphere, even at very low pressure, was often more danger ous to men than muchshigher pressures where the air was not contaminated
 MT. Thomson directed attention to what he termed the criminal folly of depositing sewerage in the Harlem river" He declared that several tests have proved that the tides did not car ny. away. all the sewerage -emptied into the Harlem, the Hudson and the East rivers, because any excavation will disclose a black putrid mud of very offensive smell on the bottoms of the rivers. He called attention to what he termed the Great Risk New York Is Undergoing of an epidemic through having the mud in rivers and bays in such condition. Tt would even be dangerous to pump the water to put out fires" he said, "as so much foul mud would thus be scattered over the city ito dry and spread as dust"
 School Children of Stock Yards
 Dr. Caroline c. Hedger of Chicago, ht the fifteenth international congress of hygiene and demography, today spoke on "The School Children of the Stock Yards District
 Tt is a gray neighborhood-the Chi cago stock yards said Dr. Hedger She presented the substance of an i'm vestigation carried on under the direc- ton of the board of the University of Chicago and showing that almost 50 per cent of the children of the stock yards district showed material retarda ton in the two schools in the district from which the 200 pupils were studied.
 Dr. Hedger presented statistics to show that children were bad physically In almost the direct proportion as they received insufficient food, had little room to live, were forced to sleep in crowded beds, and had the reflected worry from taxes and mortgages.