The bystander. [volume] (Des Moines, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1916-02-11
UNCLE SAM IS
EYE DOCTOR TO
MOUNTA|NEERS
Public Health Service Doing Great
Work Among Purest
B|ooded Americans. p,
TRACHOMA IN THE MOUNTAINS
Curing Of Sore Eyes on an Enormous
Scale 10 Humanitarian Task Be.
Ing Performed in Kentucky,
Virginia and West Virginia.

Washington.-In way-a very diff
ferent way-the United States public
health service is doing the very thing
which Mark Twain's irresistible Col.
onel Sellers" proposed to do with his
"matchless, Incompatible and alto
gether marvellous eye-water."
The colonels plea for his eye-water.
very much paraphrased. ran some
thing like this:
"One million people in the United
States have sore eyes, one million, sir!
And now come i, with natures most
potent balsam-dew of earliest morn,
plus Installations of the rarest herbs
Of field and forest-which, upon drop
ping one drop in'the eye, soothes and
cools, and which, upon repetition un.
til the entire bottle Ia used. forever
banishes pains and aches VI every de-
scription. We will sell 10000 bottles
the first year at 81 bottle-1O,Oo0
people cured of sore eyes, $4,000! We
will sell 10000 bottles the second year
10000 pairs of eyes made whole,
10000 grateful hearts, $4,000! The
third year we will sell, ETC."
The public health service is not
pushing it's own or anybody's eye-wa-
ter, and is not advancing its own or
a-lybody's money-making scheme. But
its most picturesque work has to do
with the curing of sore eyes on an
enormous scale. If direct parallel lies
with the visionary scheme Of Colonel
Sellers, it is in the number of grateful
hearts which thank this federal agen-
cy for restored vision.
This humanitarian work is being
done among the purest-blooded white
Americans in America-the mountain
GERS of Kentucky, Virginia and West
Virginia. Down in these mountains,
in small, isolated towns. far from rail-
roads, are five little government hos
pitfalls which treat victims of sore eyes
on a scale as large as that of many
of the numerous city hospitals de-
voted to this specially.
Trachoma In the Mountains.
The chief cause of sore eyes" in
the mountains is trachoma. Possibly
Mark Twain knew the prevalence of
this affection in the mountain sections
of the South and Middle West and
hence knew of the acute need for
some such wonderful cOncoction as
Colonel Sellers eye-water. Very like
ly, the great humorist drew his inspir-
alton from this knowledge.
Strange to say, however, the wide
spread existence of trachoma within
the borders of the United States wait
ed many years for official discovery"
For long time, the experts talked Of
trachoma as an exotic disease. On
the theory that it came, from abroad
and the chief danger to the American
public lay in the admission of infect
ed immigrants, trachoma was made
one of the quarantinable diseases.
Every applicant for entry into the
United States is carefully examined
for traces of trachoma and thousands
of otherwise good citizen-material
have been turned back to their native
lands from our ports because they had
trachoma.
The discovery" came little more
than three years ago, when DR.. J. A.
Stuckey of Lexington, KY, called the
attention of federal authorities to the
numerous cases of trachoma In the
Kentucky mountains. Surgeon John
McMullen, who had experience with
trachoma patients at the New York
and Philadelphia immigration stations.
conducted an investigation. OF 1000
mountaineers examined, it was found
that 500 had trachoma. In consequence
the hospitals we1o established; three
in Kentucky, one In Virginia and one
in West Virginia; at Jackson, London
and Hindman, KY. and at Coeburn,
Va, and WEIGH, w. Va. These hospi.
tails had more than LOO cases and
performed 1913 eye operations last Oc-
tober.
Effect in the Mountains.
Trachoma is disease Of the eye.
lids. GRADUATED or sandy lids, It Is
often called. It leads to serious in
SUICIDE CHANGES HIS MIND