The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1919-06-11
FOR ESCAMBIA CHILDREN.


The commissioners Of Pensacola face an OPP
portunity which will go far towards placing this
city on the front line with other OPPRESSIVE cities
of the SOUTH in the endeavor to stamp out dis
ease, which is now acknowledged by medical
science and welfare experts to be the cause OF
much of the misery and poverty of the world
Through the United States Public Health Ser
vice. and the State Board of Health, working IN
conjunction with that service this city and coun-
ty have been awakened not only to the splendid
results which may follow the continuance of the
work here, along the lines suggested by the pub
lie health service and the state but II has been
forced upon their attention that the negligence
of the past, whether through ignorance, through
lack of funds or for whatever cause, will no
longer be tolerated by the people of Pensacola
and Escambia.
The people of this section are not living IN
Stygian darkness they read and they think, and
the time has come when they demanding for
themselves, for their children and the children
of the rural districts the opportunities of
other sections of the country.
Pensacola should have full-time health Off
Ger. The Investigations which have been made
by the public health service and the state, throu
by the public health service and the state,
through the school examinations alone, should
arouse every thinking man and woman to the
crying need of the hour-which is sanitation
You must remember you men and women who
sit so smugly in your carefully sheltered homes,
that YOUR CHILDREN DO NOT SIT SAFELY
AT HOME. They are thrown in contact with
other children, and they should have and have
every right to the greatest amount of care that
the state and the municipality can throw about
them.
Nothing could go farther to show the strides
that public health work is bound to take, and
the great need for that work. than the investiga-
tions just conducted in Baltimore, which have
aroused the interest of the nation, if not the en-
tire world. For the first time in the history of
any city in the country municipality has sub
scribed large sum of money to study the con-
ditions that lead to poverty.
Amazing facts were brought to light through
these Investigations in Baltimore which knock
into cooked hat many of the heretofore gen
orally accepted "chief causes of poverty" 1T
HAS BEEN FOUND THAT DISEASE, SICK
NESS OR OTHER PHYSICAL HANDICAPS
WERE THE CHIEF CAUSES in Al per cent of
the cases studied. Moral handicaps, or wicked
ness, as some choose to call them came second,
with record of 25.18 per cent Any physician
or scientist will tell you that disease and immor-
atty are closely allied.
These examinations into the causes of power
ty were not carried in any haphazzard way.
The brains, experience and science of the eff
cheney engineer, the accountant, the business
man. the college professor, the trained social
worker, and the experiences of the INDECENT
themselves, were called into play, in this effort
to get at the things which cause men and women
and entire families to lose their independence.
AND IT WAS FOUND THAT DISEASE, SICK
NESS AND OTHER PHYSICAL HANDICAPS
WE'RE THE CHIEF CAUSES.
The investigations were brought about as a
result of the desire of few Baltimoreans in or
der to inaugurate systematic and scientific
study of the causes of poverty.
The mayor of Baltimore grasped the idea when
presented to him, and appropriated $4,000 to-
ward these investigations. The work has done
more to awaken Baltimore and every other city