The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1913-08-26
AMERICANS DYING
FROM IGNORANCE
Savage Attack Made on Care
less Way of Treating
Diseases.
(National News Association

are dying from careless, ignorant neg
lect; from plumbers and mistakes; and
from delayed diagnoses, for more than
from infection by tubercle bacilli."
So said DR.. Mary r. Lapham, of
Highlands, n. c., one of the most no
ted women physicians of the south, adj
dressing the Fourth International
Congress on School Hygiene here to-
day. Dr. Lapham laid much of the
blame for fatal results from tuberculo-
sis upon the shoulders of those who
delay diagnosis, and thereby prevent
attention being given the disease in
it's incipient stage when the patient
may be cured and saved.
What Means Death.
DR.. Papham said:
Delayed DIAGNOSIS means death and
to wait for physical signs in the lungs
or for manifestations of i'll health may
be very dangerous. Have our teachers
report for examination all children be-
low par for any cause but do not rest
content with this. Each child should be
regularly examined and the report en-
tered upon such school records. Then
in after years the efficiency of our
system can be tested by the number
of cases escaping detection, for the
attending physician can look up the
records of a case coming to him in la
ter life and if the methods employed
prove to be inadequate they will have
to be improved. The status of the
whole nation as regards tuberculosis
will be on record and the responsible
ity of the inspectors be exposed to the
most searching tests.
"Tuberculosis must be studied where
it starts in the public schools so that
we may overcome it in our children
and thus cut off our future supply of
consumptives. The child is father to
the man and to prevent the death of
the father we must begin with the
child"
but there is another side to this.
This germ proof, dustless building is
also a very costly one. City after city
passes a large appropriation to pro-
vide the most modern school house
that can be built With their compli-
Gated equipment the construction OF
these buildings being a formidable
load on the help!r IS taxpayer. How
many of the requirements Of one of
these buildings are fads and how many
are in the class of things really worth
while?
School House Expensive.
about the most important single
item of school house expense, both in
construction and maintenance is that
of heating and ventilation. Today a
twenty room school building costing
say $4,000 or ordinary plan has to
cover 900 more square feet and con-
tain perhaps 10000 more cubic feet on
account of space devoted to vertical
lines of stacks. These stacks built of
brick and other fireproof materials to-
gether with the horizontal ducts cost
perhaps $4,000. The cost of the pie
mum over direct heating apparatus in
such building would be about S.
600. The extra consumption of coal
might be variously estimated but prob
ably amount to rs or 100 tons a year"
DR.. Ira S. Wiles, member of the New
York City Board of Educatian said that
tho constructive value of instruction in
hygiene is rapidly permeating our
school system. The hygiene facts &C
cumulated during the past fifteen
years, he said, are fraught with great
er significance for the welfare of the
world than the accumulation of knowl-
edge during any other similar period
of our history.
Early education of the child in right
habits of all matters of diets and will
be the basis of the nations advance
ment in the opinion of DR.. d. r. Mac
Milan, director, department of child
study and educational research of the
Chicago public schools. DR.. Macmillan
continued:
Handicapped Children.
There are many children who are
hygienically handicapped from the be,
ginning of life. First, the chain of her
itage is weakened in some links, and
of course, this goes back to unhygie,
mic conditions and influences. Children
come into the world with incipient ner-
vous disorders, which environmental
factors early transform into overstimu
lated or understimplated nervous sys
TENS. Then, again, diseases in ear, are
found to be associated in the child's
life with unhygienic states Right liv
ing through proper surroundings and
teachings will ultimately make the so
called inevitable children's diseases
a mere matter Of curious history il
child hygiene.
THE most potent, because the most
vital, constant and comfortable during
the periods of infancy and childhood
Is the dietary of the child. The food
provided may not be sufficient and
this reaches out to social economies; il
may not be properly balanced and ad
apted to growth needs in general or in
particular to the needs of the individ
ual child's system, it may be irregu
tarly partaken. and this is dependent
to a large degree upon the habits o.
the home; it may be poorly selected
food. cheap. old, decayed, and is very
frequently unhygienically cooked
Finally, as so often occurs. the chill
dren are not educated TO eat proper
ty"
GO THE RIGHT WAY.
The hill. though high, | covet to