The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1922-02-01
PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE MAKES
 INVESTIGATION

Washington, Feb. 1. - The U. S. Public Health Service has for long of the country in an investigation of | physical standards for children Before relief can be fairly applied to children it is necessary to know really needs it. Of course, many children show their need plainly, but many others whose need is even greater may not show it to casual tn- to prevent the consequences. The common test of a chifd's 8 health development. and about the only test that can readily be applied to children in mass. is to ascertain by some standard table of age weights prepared for the purpose, whether or no they weigh as much as they should at their age. If the child is 10 per cent. or more under standard it is considered to be under | nourished and is treated according ly.
 This. however, may or may not be the case, for the standard tables are largely approximations. Nevertheless they serve a useful purpose, pending | the establishment of more accurate and scientific standards, by calling attention to individual children and causing a more careful examination | to determine whether the sub-Stand- l ard weight is due to a remediable cause.
 Some of the age-weight standards used in the United States are merely averages of all classes of children, including with the we'll those who have hampering physical defects and those who are actually under-nour- l ished. They probably never did ap- ply even to the particular part for which they were originally devised, immigration may have worked great alteration in the population: the region may have changed from agricultural to industrial; or other changes may have occurred.
 The population of the United States is very varied. It comprises lanky New EE gland fishermen, short strong Italians, -shouldered Germans, small 1.-the Cockneys, and men of many other racial strains (not to mention a few ancestral Americans) and blends of them all Moreover, it lives under many different climatic conditions, wet or dry. cold or hot; and it lives on diets that in one sec tion depends largely on meat. in an- other on sea food, in a third on corn meal and pork. All these con- ditions are more or less local and all tend to pr duce children whose phy- siQue conforms to a local and not to a general standard.
 In view of this the Public Health Service is making studies of the physical development of normal chill dren in different states and is accu- mulat1ng data that may serve as a basis for a possible (though unlikely general standard or for a number of standards which may apply to more or less homogeneous parts of the country and may indicate, far more accurately than any existing standard, the physique of the normal child by which the condition and nutTitive needs of the particular child may be judged.
 These studies comprise the making of physical measurements of all children and of collating them ac-
 
 Getty or country). and ancestry (na- tive born of American born parents, native born or foreign-born parents. or foreign born of foreign-born par ents). The data obtained should help to determine the influence of the different racial types and of immi- grafton os a while on the national physique.
 In this work the Public Health Service has obtained the co-opera- ton in several of the largest cities of the educational and health au- thorities and in many rural counties giene. The work and association will be extended in other states in the near future.
 One state where such an investiga- ion is being made by the Public Health Service in cooperation with he State Board of Health is Florida, here the population is largely hom- 1geneous-lives under similar cli- largely native born A statewide investigation. now in progress. con
 erning childrens' problems. particu-
 rly the effects of physical defects
 ton and development. is being sup
 enented by careful physical ex-
 nations and measurements in two
 sntries of all school children; and
 this it is hoped that a stand
 I for the state and the region may e framed.