The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1915-07-19
Florida Fighting
tuberculosis
(Board of Health Bulletin.)

ssss<s,ts,
(Board of Health Bulletin.)
Knowing how, will prolong many,
lives and will save many more.
In other words, ignorance is cot
ing Florida each year a heavy toll
in human life and in sickness that
might be prevented. There can be
no deeper regret over the death Of
loved one than the knowledge
when it is too late-that it was I'M
necessary, that it might have been
prevented.
AS everywhere else, so in Florida,
little ailments, seemingly trifiing
sicknesses are neglected with the ex-
pectation that they will wear off"
in few days, or they are treated
by mother" who seems to diagnose
by instinct every physical disar-
rangement in her family and who
has an "unfailing remedy" for it, in
herited from several generations
back or accumulated from her own
experiences or from those of her
neighboring housewives. But the
time canes when instinct is side
tracked and real trouble comes. It
comes to every family sooner or lat
err and it often becomes serious
far oftener than is necessary-from
plain, every day ignorance.
No disease in these modern days
is more insidiOus. more stealthy in
it's approach than tuberculosis, and
none is more dangerous both to the
victim and to those who are in init
mate daily association with him :.
CONSUMPTION, as pulmonary tuber-
culosis used to be called, is not an
incurable disease if it is recognized
soon enough. Indeed, high medical
authority declares that one Ameri
can in every seven bears the seal
maks of the disease on lung tissue
from an encounter at some time ir
. his life with the white plague.
Some recover, some don't.
And SO ignorance is the danger
I for when the disease has progresse,
far enough for the unprofessiona
;, mind to subject the truth, the tim
, of the funeral os not far away.
Beginning with July of this goo
q year, 1915, six splendidly qualifie
j., nurses will undertake, under the d
g rection of the State Board of Health
: wonderful work among the peopl
~ of Florida. Starting from six wild,
ly separated centers of population
:. they will go into each communit
&c particularly into the smaller citi'
- and the rural districts, to do VIII,
20 they can to arouse the people to Il
@ Importance of this fight again
~ tuberculosis. They will search on
no so far as is humanity possible, Il
do sufferers from this disease. Th
90 will enlist the services of the regul
T. practitioners where new cases sh;
IN be discovered. They will urge t
- open treatment--the best in t
n. world and the cheapest-for tho
ID who can not avail themselves
,ss the costly Eanitarium. They W
y. show the patient and his family HI
~. to reduce to a minimum the dams
!, 81 of spreading the infection. Tn
ho services-thoseof these six iFlori
ON nurses, who are far more tn
,od nurses in their responsibilities-w
or+ be free-free as salvation, to be h
Tho for the taking-to all the people
this great state, white and black
; 1t cannot be expected that tn
70 work will be confined to the STU
,rn of the tuberculosis problem. In
,u conditions they will find and
how which they must work, the m
,,r advise for better sanitation 9
Inv clearer surroundings; they will
consulted about ailments and Il
oot will be prepared to advise wis
and we'll
Sir OF coure, each of these won
he (all but One) will have more IL
one hundred thousand Floridians
ties her jurisdiction, and that one i
fire. have to cover the east coast fir
IDS Daytona to Key West, and the pr
in ress of Zach necessarily will be SIT
lily There should be hundred of tn,
the and thousand would be none
the many, but the work of education
Law personal contact with the people
, :, Florida with these six splendi
trained women, will be a Godsend
hundreds and thousands of men /;
women