Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-08-09
ILLNESS AND ILLlTERACY
BY H. Addington Bruce


\ FORE and more emphaticaly medical
MI experts are insisting that If for
no other reason than to protect the
public health really determined effort
should be made to put an end to illiteracy
So long as large numbers of people can not
read, disease prevention must remain to
great extent hopeless of realization.
This because, for one thing health de-
ponds primarily on hygenic living and hy-
gienic living In Its turn depends on knowI-
edge.
knowledge of dietary, principles is need
ed, knowledge of the disease-preventing
value of cleanliness and the disease-promot-
ing influence of dirt, knowledge of first prin-
ciples in the physiology of exercise and
rest, knowledge of the need for emotional
control, knowledge of the modes by which
infection is conveyed
Such knowledge can of course be impart-
ed through other means that printed ltera-
ture. 1t can be impaired through lectures,
through moving picture demonstrations
through oral instruction by visiting nurses
etc. But always these are of secondary value
as compared with the reading of books, PAM
phlets, and newspaper and magazine articles
on hygiene and health.
From this reading the illiterate are of
necessity debarred. Many of them, besides,
| never attend a lecture, never see a visiting
nurse; and, when they do happen to go to
a moving picture theater where educational
films are shown, miss much of the signifi-
canoe of the films because of inability to
read the picture titles
Consequently, out of sheer ignorance they
often live in ways that predispOSe them to
disease through a lowering of their vitality
Besides which, statistical evidence goes to
| show there is even more direct associa-
ton between illiteracy and the occurrence Of
certain diseases.
Thus the hygensts Pearl and Ilsey, chart
ing statistically the correlation between il
| literacy and the death-rate in American
cities, have found that while the percentage
| of iliteracy influences unfavorably the gen
eral death-rate, it appears to exercise
specially marked influence in raising the
death-rate from measles diphtheira, pneU-
monia, enteritis and diarrhea.
| And, mark this well, not the illiteretes
alone suffer in health because of their Hitter
! acy.
! When, for example, an infectious disease
| breaks out in community of illiterates, the
| latter serve as distributors Of it to the gen
| eral population in proportion as they go and
| come among the general population. And it
| is notorious that most epidemics of in
fictitious diseases get their start in slum sec
| tions where illiteracy is most rife.
This alone should arouse the general popu-
| lation to a sense of the disease peril of il
lteracy. That it has not thus Jar had this
! effect is evident from the fact that many
millions of ili1terates are still to be found.
Perhaps third of these country dwell
| ers the rest residents of cities. Whether they
| live in country districts or in cities, their
continuance in state Of illiteracy means
most assuredy a continuance of many dis
eases readily preventable through applica-
ton of simple principles of personal hygiene.