The Palatka news and advertiser., 1916-03-24
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MUTUAL RESPONSIBILITY.

Man is mans worst enemy!

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Man is mans worst enemy!
We are responsible for our brothers
well-being, whether we admit the fact
or not, or whether it is mutually
agreeable. We have it in our power
to injure him and he has like power
over US. We may be mutual men
aces, and the worst of it is that we
don't realize it, or knowing it, we don't
care.
With rare exceptions the diseases
and distempers that afflict US are
communicable by germ carriers from
one human host to the next victim.
If we fail to recognize the fact and
act accordingly by protecting others
from ourselves, we are guilty of a
moral wrong.
The accepted theory of modern med
ical science asserts that if tuberculo-
sis, yellow fever, malaria, smallpox,
typhoid fever, even colds, bronchitis
and many other diseases could once be
stamped out everywhere, humanity
would be freed from them for all
time, because they are communicable
only by the transference of germs,
and the germ of each disease can car
ry only that particular disease and no
other. But so long as these various
germs continue to exist, there is al
ways the danger of their spread to
new victims.
This declaration of science is not
Utopian, because where proper and
intelligently administered precaution
is observed, there follows reducing
of the disease, even of the commoner
diseases, absolutely stamping them
out within prescribed sections or ter
ritories.
But to reach such results, scien-
lists and sanitists are powerless to
do more than to point out the way.
1t rests with individual men and wo-
men, the people themselves, to bring
about the ideal condition of universal
healthfulness.
The germ of tuberculosis makes
the patient the source of infection,
and it is evident that to reduce the
danger of infection, to prevent the
spread of the disease, the germ must
be kept from reaching new victims.
If such germ transferrence could be
prevented, even lessened, the propor-
ton of one tubercular patient to ev-
cry seven of the population of the
United States would be vastly chang
ed 1t is a matter of infinite pre-
caution and watchfulness, but it is
possible.
The same is true of typhoid fever
and the entire feasibility of reducing
the prevalence of the disease has
been demonstrated in the United
States Army; also in the city of
Jacksonville, where the screening of
earth closets brought the number Of
deaths from 62 in 1910, to Ia in 1915,
of which six cases originated outside
the city.
But in disease of less fatal percent
ages, there is the same danger Of
communication if no one had cold
no one else could have a cold. We
do not "catch cold" from drafts or
wet feet, but because we get the germ
of a cold from some one who already
harbors it in his system. It's hard
to upset such cherished traditions, but
this is one that should be banished
from cur minds.
The gcrms of colds, bronchitis ard
Other affections of the mucous mem
braneS of the throat, are expelled by
sncezing, coughing, even by empha-
sired talking. Of course these germs
don't retain their power for harm n
the open air longer than few Sec
onds but when a person is within two
or three feet of such explosion the
probable result is another victim with
hard cold. In the crowded church
or theater or streetcar, where people
are necessarily gathered in close proX-
unity. the individual who fails to
smother his cough or sneeze in Il
handkerchief is guilty of an impropri-
ETY. not sanctioned in good society but
more than that, he is guilty of NOR
al offense against his neighbors who
just simply can't help themselves:
This idea of mutual responsibility,
especially in health matters, is alb
solutely unacceptable. It's as fixed
as the fact that death is the fate or
the reward of every human being.
Not until the fact is universally ac-
cepted and incorporated into the ac~
tuating principles of every life and
of all living, will society be safe
from itself and from every individual
who forms a part.-Bulletin State
Board of Health.