The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-09-10
HAVE NO. USE FOR THE PUBLIC. HEALTH OFFICIALS
Would Rather "Die DecentIy In Their Beds" Than Live By the Grace of Govern
 ment Influence
By FLETCHER ALLEN (RecinrOcpI NcNNs ServiceA


 istry of health has a thankless job fighting disease for the Brilishers. Most English people think that the government has no business inter- ferihg with their private life, and their diseases are their most secret possessions. The wonder is that the official department of the nations health can get any results at all. With a public always on the look out for some way of lodging the of- ficial demands who would rather die in private than live by government tai interference.
 No trace of this attitude is found in the government report on the ha- tons health. but it figures largely in the official conversation that goes on under the shadow of the Houses of Parliament
 By slow degrees, however. the gov ernment is moving forward with it's propaganda and course of education, and has achieved some big results in spite of public protest and lack of cooperation.
 Feel As Criminals
 Britishers feel that once they have reported disease to the gov ernnent they are somehow classified with criminals and the undeSirable Quite an appreciable percentage of the population refuse to distinguish between a sanltarium and a prison. They would rather "die decently in their beds" than go to a public insti tuition to get better.
 Tuberculosis, for example, is largely held to be a social disgrace, as much to be hidden and denied IS insanity or crime. When the govern ment made tuberculosis compulsorily notfiabie in 1912 and 1913, there was storm of protest that swept the country with the violence of d moral civil war. But the government won. The deaths from tuberculosis have steadily decreased In the past two years deaths from this cause have been reduced by nearly 57 per cent, and government interference IS scarcely remembered In 1918 the deaths from tuberculosis were 5S.073. This year they have fallen to 42,545. The gain in health is steady since the government department began it's propa ganda. Six years ago. in 1915, the cases reported amounted to 90,600; in 1920 the total cases were 73,20o.
 Much Overcrowding
 This progress is the more remark able when it is remembered that trere is considerable overcrowding in Great Britain, due to the shortage of houses. shortage which in- creases rather than diminishes. all though the government has devoted one-half of the gross sales of na- tienal savings certificates to the provision of houses.
 The report of the ministry of health reveals that the officials are I H1x, laa IN1 1ie-l1r1 mar. of international health cooperation through the League of Nations, or some other similar organizations, in order to secure the rapid exchange of information and the adoption of swift and simple methods of action against the attacks of diseases, which transcend national houndar- ies." In this expansion of the cam paign against disease, American ir- American money has been prime 'factor.
 < American Methods
 Not only in this connection hays American methods been adopted The ministry of health has recently launched a more ambitious and sig nificant scheme, arising largely out of the procedure of the American au- thorities during the war. The war saw an alarming spread Ol NeHeIcdi disease, which threatened to become nothing short of a cataclysm in Europe, and whose virulence was especially marked in Great Britain. The first treatment centers for venerealN diseases were opened inl 1917, but the same prejudice against treatment prevailed, and the same, ignorance of the nature and sigpi- ficance of the diseases hampered thoI scheme. Therefore the government and bodies recognized by the gov ernment have carried on an inces-I the old Irish game with both hands behind her back and a different offer in each Yet the British public. per- haps on the principle of not letting it's right hand know what it's left hand is doing. for the time being. per suaded that Ireland has been offered full dominion status and has refused it, and must thereby have alienated the sympathy of the whole world and all the talk one hears is how long it will take to knock some sense into these empty Irish heads