The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-11-09
ROWLAND DRY GOODS CO.


 1 that it will be only question of tims
 when the operators will have to gc out of business. Hence it does not
 take seer to predict the course that 1 will be adopted by the operators ] when their time of reckoning comes. Some may take the view that, as there is still considerable contagious l and quarantinable disease in the 1 world, in spite of scientific knowledge of it's causation, it is too soon to take up the immense problems so intimate ly connected with economics. Actu- ally, the difficulty here is the same as will be with the foods-politics. There is no longer any sanitary prob lem to be solved as to the causation and elimination of many of the con- tagious diseases, notably those known positively to be carried by mosquito ss and flies.
 we know the causes and we know the cures. The problem is entirely political. A wealthy man or corpora ton owns an area of low-lying land which breeds mosquitoes. He is or dered by the Boavd of Health to drain his land. Usually. it costs the own- CT less to fix a political boss than to drain his land; ano. the Board of Health is silenced. It is much ths same proposition about slaughter houses, which breed flies. It costs less to satisfy politicians than Boards of Health!
 Judging from the past and the present, we may be absolutely certain that such a state of affairs will not be tolerated much longer-any more than slavery or piracy would be tol- .erated now. Human conscience has evolved beyond the last two, and is
 near the place wher, it will repudiate rotten politics. And then the com- municable diseases will vanish, like slavery anad piracy.
 Another matter that will receive attention from the public authorities of school children. Some years ago it was painfully common to see very many children wearing glasses--many more than we SC now. Why were there so many of them, so compara- lively few now, and none at all gen. eration or more ago? Just the intro duction of a new craze or fad. There is no valid reason for thinking that chiIdren's eyes were greatly worse 20 years ago than they were hundred, except, indeed, for the added eye strain caused by the imposition of useless and absurd subjects for study, which was rather more common 20 years ago than now.
 ''Any oculist can find some slight abnormality in almost every eye. When the craze was on it was thought that defective eyes on large scale were becoming alarmingly common,
 hc0 1fn1x 11n cessary. Now we know better, re- alizing that nature easily adjusts her. self to moderate defects. But sanity l did not come until hundreds of thous- ands of children's eyes had been ruin ed by wild and reckless use of glasses. |
 ''It is becoming insistently evident that the only true wealth of nations | is the efficiency of their human life | Efficiency is insepara5le from health. At present the authorities consider l this only as far as public health and safety are affected by violence and by diseases. This is inconsistent with i the larger view of health and ef- i ficiency. AS surely as that the sun | rises, the time will come when per- sonal health will be the care of the | state.
 Economically nothing could be l more stupidly wasteful than the pres- ent way of charging up the health of | B family to the scant wages of the | father. Tn we'll ordered states of the future, public health will be counted [ as one of the chief assets. Medical treatment should be as much the vested right of every citizen as Is now rough police protection. Police- ! men are paid by the State or city. Phy- sicians should be public servantss paid from public funds with some reason able arrangement which would allow people to have the doctors of their choice.
 "As the public responsibility de- community conscience, according to Jane Addams ism and crime will also becme public health matters. Overwork, over-edu- cation, and, in fact every state of