The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1912-11-26
READY TO FIGHT
WHITE PLAGUE
Campaign For Better LeSisia-
ton Will Be Waged This
Winter

/ The Anti-tubercuIosis society Is
preparing to fight for better Iegis-
lation next winter and has issued the
following preparatory statement:
This is the fifth year Of an educa-
tional campaign in this state for the
prevention of tuberculosis. The cit
les, the small towns and in some
cases whole counties have been COW
cred with lectures, exhibitions and
literature. Very few of the 600
newspapers of the state have not
Published items on tuberculosis.
Some of them give space to this topic
in almosteyeryissue. Yetthe plague
is still with US in undiminished
strength; whole families are still be-
ing swept away; the yearly tribute
of young men and maidens is still
being paid.
Is 1T not time that we realize1 and
acted on what the lecturers and leaf
lets havelncessantly preached, nameA
ly, that education is only the first
step. that we must have setof per-
manent institutions and agencies to
successfully fight the disease. In
some states the methods of the pro-
4
paganda have been wrong. People
have been told, do not spit, keep
your head out of doors and theprob-
lem is solved" But that is not true
of the movement in Minnesota. We
have realized from the beginning
that the ultimate aim was the crys-
talizing of public sentiment intolaws
and appropriations ndpublic health
machinery which would work as
automatically as the machinery now
employed to care for the insane.
Segregation of the injecting in
dividuals (whose number is quite
definite and whose location and sur
roundings may be ascertained just
as soon as we are willing to obey ex-
isting law, is universally recognized
as the only absolutely reliable agency
in reducing the death rate. The
present generation of consumptives
is for the most part doomed, and
must pass away, and our main con-
Germ is that the present victims shall
not, before they die, pass their NAL
ady on as tragic legacy to their
brothers and sisters and associates.
Slow family infection in the home is
the great cause of the spread OF the
disease and no measure that does not
lessen the amount of this infection
will seriously affect the death rate.
| Mr.. Average Citizen, don't shrink
any longer from this disagreeable
truth nor from its corrollary, that
your home, my home, the average
home is no place for the care of a
person with an infectious disease
No physician, no health inspec or can
guarantee that infection will not
spread in your home unless you con-
vert it into a hospital, in which case
it would no longer be a home. The
traditions of a thousand years of
Anglo-Saxon domestic life, to say
nothing of lack of means, are against
the proposition of home. hospitals. Z
Then why not accept the substi-
tute-local public asylums scattered
over the state where yourloved ones
who have contracted the disease will
be tenderly cared for and can be fire.
quently visited till either death makes
them no longer menace or nature
aided by the best of hygenic sur
roundings and medical and nursing
skill puts the germs to rout and the
victim returns to the world of men.
From the sentimental side the diff
ference between home and hospital
is just this: Love of the loved one
in the home now means death for
one, danger for all; love of the loved
one in the nearby hospitalmay mean
life for one and will mean safety for
all.
If you accept this program you
must pay the bill which community
neglect always entails. Your taxes
will be raised fraction of mill,
but it will be worth it. When you
look your neighbor in the face who
perchance and whose family have
been held back in the race Of life BY
the undertow of physical weakness
and dread disease you will feel bet