The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1912-10-24
tuberculosis Carries Off $4,000
Children a Year.
Waste Could Be Eliminated II Child
Was Taken Care Of at Right
Tlme-Crowding and Lack OF
Food Among Evils.

Washington.-"Thr per cent of all
the children of school age in the
United States are tuberculous, which
involves a yearly loss of $75,OOO,OOO,"
declared DIR. 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 $75,OO0,0OO," he said,
as figured on the cost of maintaining
these children to the community and
to their parents at $3.50 per annum
and figuring the average lite OF the
$4,000 children who die annually from
tuberculosis at seven and one-half
years. This waste could be elm
mated if the child were taken care of
at the right time
DIR. Knopf also declared that in his
opinion a 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 a pathological or esthetic de-
feet which can be prevented by time
ly treatment and care. The result
of such provision will be better health
and 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
a micro-organism which kills rats in
fected with bubonic plague. The pos
off 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
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 G. He'd
ger of Chicago, who spoke on "The
School Children of the Stockyards Dis
trict.'
1T is a gray neighborhood, the Chi
cago stockyards,' said DR.. Hedger
She presented the substance Of an in
vestigation carried on under the di
rection of the board of the University
of Chicago, showing that almost sc
per cent. of the children of the stock
yards district chowed material re
tardation in the two schools in the
district from which the 200 pupils
were students.
I'm the region in which they live
she said, "the smoke comes down in
clouds and with it comes the smell oil
the fertilizer plants. This is not con
ducive to deep breathing or SOUND
sleep, and the children impress one as
lacking oxygen, round-shouldered. thir
and rather pale.
"The children have not the spirit
and the nervous balance to make theil
grades. If the child grows inactive
discontinued, becomes idle and a Grim
inal, is the child to blame?" the speak
er asked. ''or 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 neighborhoods like this?"