The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1912-10-26
tuberculosis Carries Off $4,000
Children a Year.
Waste Could Be Eliminated " Child
Was Taken Care OF at Right
Time-crowding and Lack of
Food Among Evils.

Neutrality-suspicious. per cent of all
the children of school age in the
United States are tuberculous, which
involves yearly loss of $4,000. 000."
declared DR.. s. Adolphus Knopf OF
the New York Post Graduate Medical
school and hospital, in addressing the
fifteenth international congress OF n.y.
giene and demography in session
here.
The loss of $4,000, O0o," he said.
lis figured on the cost of maintaining
these children to the community and
to their parents at $3.50 per annum
and figuring the average life of the
$4,000 children who. die annually from
tuberculosis at seven and one-half
yeare. This waste could be elm
mated if the child were taken care of
at the right time"
DR.. Knopf also declared that in his
opinion large percentage Of the
diseases prevalent among children of
school age was due to decayed teeth.
Let US have free dental clinics"
said DR.. Knopf. Let each child be
carefully and practically re-examined
for every possible physical and mental
deficiency; let no child pass Through
life with pathological or esthetic de-
feet which can be prevented by time
ly treatment and care. The result
Of such provision will be better health
ID happier citizens"
Twenty-Five hundred delegates.
among them some of the most noted
scientists In Europe and the United
States, were present when the con-
vention was called to order by Presi-
dent Henry P. Walcott of Boston.
DR.. Anderson declared typhus fever
was prevalent in Chicago. New York
and other large cities and was spread
by insects.
DR.. Fred Novy of the University of
Michigan announced the discovery Of
micro-organism which kills rats in
fected with bubonic plague. The pos
sibility OF wiping the dreaded plague
of the earth was suggested. DR..
Daniel Warren Poor and DR.. Edna
Steinhardt of the New York depart
ment Of health told OF the finding of
a gland virus for rabies.
That children are bad physically in
almost direct proportion as they re-
ceive insufficient food, have little room
to live. are forced to sleep in crowded
beds and have the reflected worry
from taxes and mortgages. is the opin-
ion expressed by DR.. Caroline C. He'd
ger Of Chicago. who spoke on THE
School Children of the Stockyards Dis
trict"
1t "a gray neighborhood, the Chi
cago stockyards." said DR.. Hedger.
She presented the substance of an in
vestigation carried on under the d.
rection Of the board of the University
OF Chicago. showing that almost so
per cent of the children of the stock
yards district .howed material re-
tardation in the two schools in the
district from which the 200 pupils
were students
In the region in which they live,"
she said. "the smoke comes down In
clouds and with it comes the smell of
the fertilizer plants. This is not con-
ducfve to deep breathing or sound
sleep, and the children impress one as
lacking oxygen. round-shouldered thin
and rather pale
The children have not the spirit
and the nervous balance to make their
grades. II the child grows inactive.
discontinued. becomes idle and a Grim
inal. Is the child to blame?" the speak
er asked, "oA is the SNUG citizen who
lives on the fat returns of stocks.
whose money is made by the sweat
and blood and deprivation Of the In
dustrial nefghborhoods like this?"