The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1922-01-17
Making the Country Healthful.


~ health standards. One of the lowest
mortality rates in the world is to be found in
super-crowded East Side tenement district in New
York. We constantly the lookout for the
insurgence of cpidemcs in metropolises, but,
until recently, have somewhat ignored the spread
of dangerous diseases in the vastly prcpondcrat-
ing rural sections.
Along this line, the Kansas City Star remarks
edtorially that greatly increased attention to pub
lie health in recent years frequently has placed
emphasis the fact that the rural districts are
handicapped, compared with the cities, in facilities
designed to promote the physical we'll being Of
the people. Hospitals, competent physicians and
public health bodies and measures rule are
lacking in districts remote from the big ccnters.
In a letter to the State board of health Gov.
Hyde of Missouri asked that, if possible, some
should be found to extend to the country
the aid to crippled children contemplated by
medical societies to such children, who were found
to be needy in St. Louis and Kansas City. Gov.
Hyde referred to the amazing health conditions
among rural Missouri school children revealed by
a survey of forty-eight counties of the State.
- "One OF the most encouraging activities of the
Rockefeller Foundation, revealed in the report
of the foundation for 1890 is the effective service
rendered in assistance to county health work in
the Southern States. In its demonstration CAM
the foundation, through its international health
board, has greatly stimulated the development Of
full time county health organizations
These agencies says the report, seek to do
for the rural people what the modern we'll equipped
municipal health department does for the popula-
tons of the larger cities and towns.
THE importance of this work is emphasized
in the reminder that more than one-haf of the
total population of the United States is rural and
that in twenty-five States the rural population
comprises more than three-hfths of the total
The progress made by Southern States in rural
health promotion, is evidenced in the increase of
nearly 600 per cent in county funds appropriated
for this purpose from 1917 to 1920, and in the
doubling OF State funds for the activity in
the period. This form of public health service
now is being adopted in other States, the total
number of rural counties having health depart
ments, with whole time health officer, being I26
a year ago.
THE county health Activity thus being cs-
tabished seeks through the spread of information,
the popularizstion OF health activity, medical in
spection and dental service for school children,
improvement OF sanitary conditions, infant welfare,
life extension and the control Of communicable
diseases to train the people in healthful living.
Some of the results of this effort are promis-
ing Health work in one Georgia county led to a
reduction IN the annual number OF dysentery cases
from 4o6 to s., and of typhoid cases from II77 to
IS. In nine North Carolina counties deaths from
typhoid fever, from 1914 to 1917, 35.3 Per
100000 population. After Inauguration of county
health work in 1918 this figure was reduced to
% per 100000 of population. In one Mississippi
county the number of typhoid cases reduted
approximately 90 per cent in three years by means
of incubation against the disease and improvement
of sanitary conditions r.
Some conditions OF rural life including out
door living and frequently more wholesome food
perhaps conducive to health than GER
tain conditions in the cities. But number OF
surveys has shown that rural populations gerer-
ally are badly in need OF health facilities are
the cities. And one OF the important developments
OF health promotion in the years just ahead should
be increased activity in giving to the rural dis
tricts the same opportunities in the form of hos
pitfalls, well trained physicians and other health
agencies that being developed in the larger
centers of population. Improvement of this char
acter, doubt. would add materially to the at
ractireness and well being of country life in
America"
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