The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-03-16
REAL WORKERS AT
 NATIONAL CAPITOL
HUGH s. CUMMINGS


 q frightened town that blown bit of paper has on halfbroken colt.
 The Bubonic Plague Scare
 During the next few years he studied cholera, plague, smallpox, beriberi anG other communicable diseases and the means of transmission and control in laboratories and the field. Then the bubonic scare came to San Francisco in 1901, with the same inevitable con flict between federal and state and municipal authorities. So pr. Cum ming was sent to handle it. He never hesitated to clamp down the federal |thumb and finger when be had to do 90, but he got along without bands and flags when possible. Every ripple was smoothed out of a situation that promised high waves. = .' < | By this time it began to seem rather foolish not to make wider use of his knowledge of the pandemic diseases and he was sent to the Orient to examine the source. He straightened out some of the complexes in our immigrant ex- animation service and set on foot q movement which only recently came to fuli friition in the abolition of the local quarantine service at ports and the sub stitution therefore of federal quaran- tine service. When the war came on he was detailed as advisor in sanitation with the surgeon general of the navy and following his excellent service in that capacity was sent, to Europe to report, on the. health and sanitary con- ditions in the ports used by our troops. For some time he remained in Europe, studying the health conditions in the devastated countries, with special at- tention to the dangers to us due to the flood of immigrants that threatened to swamp the United States. Cared For Service Men It was while he was in the near east that President Wilson made him surgeon general of the public health ser vice. Some of the men who most warm ly urged his appointment were wholly unknown to him. They knew him only through his work. The duty of caring for the sick and disabled service men was dumped on the bureau during the interegnum preceding the creation of the United States Veterans Bureau. The public health services hospitals were increased from 9 to 67 in number and the employees from 4,000 to 14,000. It was CuACE6ChCy JUL enough a costly one. But no scandal attached to the public health service. Now it is able to get back to its own work.
 That work fills two pages of an in- dex in the annual report. Lepers were being unkindly treated in some of the states. That is,s there was no inten- tion of unkindness, but leprosy is a disease feared by every one.. The suf- fers were isolated and largely uncared for. Many of them go blind and the agony they experienced, waiting for a rotting death, is inconceivable to an ordinarily happy man. Now they can at least wait for death in comparative comfort. Not much more can be done for them as yet. The widely promised cures are not wholly to be relied upon.
 Plaques Now Under Control
 The. public health service, in coop eration with the other health services of the nation, has largely destroyed the danger from yellow fever. There are still yellow fever centers in the world. There may be such centers for cen- tury to come. But no fear of an epi- demic is felt. Smallpox and the plague are under control. The worst thing we have to fear is that we have be- come so healthy that the class of inn munes no longer exists. The service has shown that botulism is largely due to incorrect methods of preserving fruit and vegetables. Yet at one time it threatened the very existence of large canning industries.
 Our greatest disease dangers, per haps, are those arising from malaria and: influenza. Americans have done morAsto conquer malaria than any other people. Yet because of our fhabit of continually breaking fresh ground in our building and farming operations malaria persists to plague us. Infleunza still has its own way very largely. In some of the southern states there are areas in which 'trachoma was almost unchecked until Dr. Cumming got after this dread disease of the eyes. The health service is fighting spotted fever in some of the Rocky Mountain states and the other minor epidemics which spring up in isolated localities almost unheard of at a distance.
 Educating The Public
 One of the great accomplishments Of the service is in educating the people to better methods of sanitation. A rural health service teaches the farmer and the small town man how to keep healthy. Lecturers, the mail, and the radio are the means employed. The fight on the social diseases is succeed ing. Slowly, perhaps, but nevertheless succeeding. If tho figures seem to con tradict this statement, it is because the figures are more complete than ever before. Little by little the states and cities are granting more complete cooperation with the government.
 American health is better than it ever was before. It will be better as time goes on.
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