Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1914-06-10

. all states of the Union have laws re
quiring the reporting of one or more
of the preventable diseases.
| mo important aspect of our state
health work shows up to such poor ad
vantage as does the registration and
control of the preventable diseases
We are here concerned with condi
| tions which are responsible from year
to year for large economic and social
losses and yet we have only the crud
est machinery for checking them. Pro
fessor Irving Fisher of Yale, has esti.
mated that about three million people
are seriously i'll at any one time in the
United States, of whom about half are
suffering from preventable causes. The
economic losses from such illness he
declares to be no less than five hun
dred million dollars annually in wages
and an equal sum in doctors fees,
drugs and other necessary medical &C.
cessories. These figures, he believes,
are conservative; but it is obviously
impossible to make any estimate
which will approximate the truth in
view of the total absence of reliable
information. In fact, there are no rec
ords of illness in this country except
the very fragmentary reports of a few
states and some corporations. What
ever be the exact amount of loss sus-
tanned, through sickness, effective reg
istration will help materially to reduce
it and will thus yield a big return to
the communities on the relatively
small investment required.
Permit me to show in some detail
how an efficient system of reporting
disease will affect the public welfare:
First. 1t will make possible the
and effective treatment of
certain infectious diseases. In cases of
for example, an early re-
port to the department of health puts
at the disposal of the patient the en-
tire battery of the hygienic resources
OF the community.
Let us take another instance, that
Of diphtheria, where success in the
treatment depends so Largely on an
early and correct diagnosis. The reg
istration of a suspected case enables
the health authorities to make a Gull
ture which settles the diagnosis In
positive cases, the information placed
at the disposal of the physician in
charge helps to make a cure almost
certain.
Second. The registration of the
diseases will enable !
health officers to discover foci of infec- !
ion in time to prevent the further |
spread of such diseases. The early |
md complete reporting of cases of ty-
1hoid fever at once puts the efficient !
health officer on the track of the in
ection. 1t may be the sewerage sys-
EN-, or the water or milk supply |
which is at the bottom of the trouble |
n any event the location and the Sc !
luence of the cases settles the ques-
ion and the epidemic may, in this way
,e quickly prevented from spreading
o other sections. Such was the case
ecently in New York City, where an
Infected milk supply gave rise to some !
hree hundred cases of typhoid fever /
n this instance, If the department of |
ealth had waited until the first death |
lad been reported, the epidemic would |
n all probability have spread to in
other homes and the death |
osses increased many fold
Similarly, in the city of Buffalo, dur
ng 1912, an epidemic of infantile pa.
alysis was checked without serious