South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1917-07-01
By Woods Hutchinson, A. NJ, NJ. D.
The Famous Physician Author.

The Famous Physician Author.
KTANY of US can wildly remember when
VI sickness was looked upon as mys-
terious visitation from an all-wise
Providence.
But we have changed all that within the
last few decades, and while some maladies
and many cases of illness still come like
crushing and pitiful calamity out of clear
sky, without shadow of blame or even rea-
sOnable suspicion of cause yet for consid-
cradle majority of our illnesses and ill-health
we may justly hold ourselves in some degree
at fault and responsible. Or if the fault be
not ours, individually, it may rightly be laid
upon the community, of which we are part.
The reason why we can now hold ourselves
or others responsible for a considerable share
of our diseases and our chronic condition of
ill-health Is simply that for the first time in
history we really know what causes them
and. hence how they might be prevented
Nav more, we have reached the stage of free
diffusion of knowledge where the old legal
maxim begins to apply, Ignorance of the
law excuseth no man, - if we don't know we
ought to know.
That Cause Of Causes is "bugs" of one
sort or another And while they are innum-
cradle in their variety and like corpora
tiOns, have neither a soul to be saved nor
a head to be punched" yet they all have
bodies to be killed and, on the whole, rather
easily. Raise them to a few degrees above
Summer heat chill them halfway TO Win
ter's cold. expose them to the sun, to the
light to the air, dry them, freeze them, rob
them of food for a few hours, and they
die or fall by the wayside Most luckily,
they nearly all die of the same kind of
things so that one make of machine gun and
one size of cartridges can be used against
them all. And when once they are killed,
wounded or missing, the disease which bears
their name stops as absolutely and as in
evitably as a fountain jet does when the
water is cut off. No bugs, no infectious dis
ease is well-nlgh as absolute a natural
law as no fire. no heat It Is as true of sick
ness as of anything else, that the curse cause
less shall not come
But surely all diseases are not Catching
all states of lll-health due to germs. After
we have had the diseases of childhood and
perhaps a siege Of typhoid or rheumatism
and escaped pneumonia and tuberculosis, we
think we are pretty nearly done with infec-
tons but there are plenty of other diseases
left. This would be the view of the average
man. and perhaps we doctors have uncon-
sciously, in our delight and enthusiasm at
the control which it gave us over our ancient
enemy, disease drifted over TO the opposite
extreme Of view as TO the frequency and I'M
portance Of infections.
Just recently some rather careful studies
have been made TO get at the actual facts of
this important question from several differ
ent points Of view. Three main sources were
used The first the causes of the deaths. re-
ported 10 the health authorities in various
cities and States for a series of five to ten
gears. Second, the causes for which patients
bad been admitted to two great city hospi-
nj. for a number of years Third. the ma
ture OF the illnesses reported TO friendly So
e:eties and health insurance companies for
. Germ Of years