The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-12-12
PRAISES THE SOUTH FOR HEALTH WORK
 UNDER DIFFICULTY
New York Man Says Long Winters and Early Frost
 Simplify Problem

Jacksonville, Fla, December 11.-(Spe- cial)-The southern public health exhiN- ton shown in this city in connection with the forty-second annual meeting of the American Public Health association att tracted great deal of attention from the more than 300 sanitary experts and other public health workers gathered from all parts of this country, Canada and Cuba
 Dr. Charles D. Terry, health officer of this city, had collected charts. diagrams, mechanical devices and other material showing the public health progress of the south, occupying all together two floors of Morocco temple. Not only the members and guests of the convention viewed the exhibit, but also the public of Jack vile visited it in large numbers.
 The extent of the public health progress of the south was a surprise to many vis- itors from the north. Especially inter- esting to them was the exhibit of the board of health of North Carolina. The chief feature of North Carolina's exhibit was a miniature village of 1VJ houses with lights arranged inside of each one, so that three, then five and then 12 lights dis appear. The extinguishing of these lights illustrated the number of babies that die out of each 100 born. h s..ss
 The exhibit of the city of Savannah showing the work that has been done through drainage, for the protection of the milk supply. the prevention of tubercu- losis and in the citys laboratories has also called forth such favorable comment from the visiting health workers
 The effect of the southern health exhibit on the northerner is illustrated by signed interview by Edward A. Moree, advisory expert in public health education of the New York state department of health.
 This exhibit will most graphically and distinctly show all of us who find our homes where snowdrifts ripen early that the south has many peculiar and perplex- ing complications to its public health problems" said MT. Moree.
 We in the north think we have con siderable job when we tackle tuberculosis, typhoid, infant mortality, venereal dis eases, insanity and faulty rural sanita- ton, but we know nothing of hookworm disease, pellagra and have only a limited experience with the plague. But above all, we are fortunate in that our prob- lems are all so simple, comparatively, by the absence of the mass of inert negro public with which you must deal.
 When we in public health work speak of education and its importance to the individual we usually think merely of the
 education of the individual; we strive to our hearts content, and 1t is nobody's
 business. But if, by chance. we should all be thrown together on the same island,
 then your sickness and my sickness and my neighbours sickness become the vital
 business of each one of us. Then our private health concern becomes a public health problem.
 AS l see it. and oh! so clearly since my inspection of your southern health ex-
 hibit yesterday, you in the south must
 wrestle with a great mass of uneducated
 public, and. for the present at least, an
 uneducatabe public. Your typhoid, tu-
 berculosis infant mortality problems are multiplied many, many times by your negro and your mountain white popula- ton.
 No one who has not labored ill this field can fully appreciate the difficulties of these two complications of the scuth's public health problem, but believe that we of the north can see that the south is beginning to appreciate them-if, indeed, your people have not already grasped their full significance. You in the south must devote about half of your effort to work that has but comparatively limited immediate return and practically nothing Of future bene- fit in support of public health work. This throws an additional burden upon the enlightened public opinion of the south. Those who believe that public health is purchaseable and that 1t Is worth the price must believe it not only for themselves. but with sufficient conviction and force to overcome part of the effect of the inert mass of public opinion which your health officials must combat. "I have seen your hookworm campaigns graphically described; have seen pictures of your infant welfare nurses instructng the white and negro mothers in the case of their babies I have seen stirring H. lustrations O. your tuberculosis cam
 paigns, of your campaigns against the filthy rat, of Louisiana's successful eff fort to- keep bubonic plague from her shores. studied with great care the health work of North and South Carolina, Georgia. Asheville, Savannah, MobiIe At lanta, Tennessee, Florida and Jackson vile.
 "In our state department of health in New York we have adopted the motto | Public health Is purchaseable.' That thif l is true is realized to the fullest extent l by your state and municipal health of. | ficials in the south. Whether you VIII purchase it and cash in on the immense future profits of your purchase depenof not on your officials, but on you, the rep. resentatives of the enlightened portion o1 | the south's public opinion.
 "There are great, blg, pregnant lessons | in every chart of the admirable exhibit which Dr. Charles E. Terry has gathered 1 for the visitors at-the convention, and for l the public of Jacksonville. have seen | many exhibits and, have helped to make several, but none that have seen and | none that have helped make has meant 50 much to me as the one I-vtewed yester- day afternoon. Not a patriotic citizen oi | this beautiful city can afford to let thil l opportunity pass, to see what the great throbbing new south is doing for its peo-
 ,,l.-for itaelf"