Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-05-19
MEDICAL SCIENCE

TT Is the personal touch" that insures
i popularity. story Is bound to hit, If 1t
is so vivdy written that it reminds each
reader of some person, or some incident In
his own life. 1t is this same universal per-
sonal application to ones own individual
heart, liver and lungs which gives technical
medical articles their prominence in the pop
uar magazines.
Medicine in the abstract is quite ponder
Gus and remote as law or higher mathe-
mates or esoteric Buddhism, and yet several
of the magazines make feature of popu-
larized medical articles every month, and
the average medicine probably overbal-
ances other professional and scientific sub
jects in a ratio of four five to one. It's
the personal touch that explains it. A good
example Of the general interest of these
technical articles is found in an account of
the heart by DR. II. S. williams. in Hearst's
Magazine %. Its opening sentence is
strangely reminiscent of "Billy" Sunday.
Is your heart all right?
1t should he known that there more
deaths now in the United States from organic
heart disease than from all forms of tuber-
cuosIs or consumption, President Elmer r.
Rttenhouse of the Life Extension Institute
points out: '1n 30 years the mortality from
these organic diseases has increased in Massa-
chusetts SO per cent; in 10 American cities 81
per cent"
In these days OF autOmODlleS every one mas
some knowledge of power Transforming motors,
but few of perhaps ever stop to consider
that the most wonderful of all such motors Is
the pumping machine we call the heart This
amazing little motor, only as big as your fist,
is the nearest approach to a perpetual motion
machine of which have any knowledge 1t
begins throbbing when the embryo that is to
be future organism Is scarcely more than
neck of prOtoplasm. and 1t never stops throb-
bling during the entire life of the organism
MIR. Rttenhouse estimates that more than
anplo II. a IN hla
or remediahle malades of the heart and cir
CulatoTy system. The causes 8 may he
reduced to n single ciass-namely, errors of nu-
triton The particular Of diet that Is
most harmful is the ingeston of excessive guam
titles of proteid foods, of which eggs and lean
meats of all kinds are the typical examples,
Food of this type leads, among other things,
to n tendency to hardening of the arteries, and
IL this proceeds very far 1t complicates the
problem of proper distribution of the blood
The Scientific American (2) warns against
typhoid fever, and, in spite of the recent
success of Bernard shaw's satirical attack
on all forms of inocuation in THE Doctors
Dilemma" takes strong editorial stand in
advocacy of vaccination for typhoid as we'll
as smallpox.
An Ounce of Prevention
Typhoid fever has fourth place on American
mortality lists, coming only after tuberculosis,
pneumonia and cancer 1t is contracted in alb
solutely no other way than by swallowing food
and drink (the latter mostly water or milh)
contaminated in various disgusting ways. Dirty
fingers and the filthy fly are the chief inter
mediarles. Scientifically speaking, nothing can
be simpler than the prevention of these infec-
tions The application OF the principle is. how
ever of great practical difficulty. For exam
pie there Is the cook Typhoid Mary, carrier
of the germ, who. although she declares she
never herself had the disease, has nevertheless.
in the migratlons from family TO family pc
cuar to her caste through number of years
disseminated the Infection to some score or
more of sufferers
The best insurance against typhoid is. after
all, to get inoculated against the disease all
sensible people now Yaccinated against
smallpox. Especially is this well to do when
there are typhoid epidemies; and for CONNER
cial travellers, motorists, tourists and vacation
lists Deaths have been alleged to be due 10
such inoculations but In every case the death
has been found by the authorities on autopsy
to have been due not at all to the inocuations
but TO some disease In nOwise related TO or
affected by this anti-typhoid preventive
measure,
The case against vaccination and against
much OF the modern preventive theory of
medicine is presented by Helen S. Gray,
writing in the Forum (S),
Jenner introduced smallpox vaccination In
1855 Carnegie names him one OF the p men
who have made the world move. He made II
legged that vaccination affords protection
against smallpox. In the German Empire the
vaccination law is very stringent and Is rig
orously enforced. Boasts are frequently made
as 10 how thoroughly vaeeinated the whole
country Is that smallpox is never seen in Ger
many except as an importation" (Health Com
missioner Goldwater, OF New York; NotWith-
standing. an epidemic OF smallpox occurred In
Maulbronn, WurtembeTg, about September. 1912
and practically the whole county was quaran-
tined, Vaccination is required In the United
States army and navy. But year ago an out
break occurred the Ohio. The oficlaI re-
port states that there were 20 cases ana fye
For years smallpox has been the Mumbo
Jumbo Of the medical profession. bosey with