Twin city review. [volume] (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-1929, 1925-07-31
Auto Is Health
Hazard, Says Rawlings

Springfield, July ga measure
of comfort is found for the A persons
out of every 5 in the state who have
not yet bought an automobile, but who
wish to own one in a statement issued
here today by DIR. Isaac d. Rawlings,
state health director, who declares
that automotive transportation is not
an unblemished blessing to humanity.
With all of its benefits, says the direc-
tor, the automobile has its shortcom-
ingS, being responsible for an average
of over 100 fatalities and 1000 in
juries monthly in Illinois and tending
to promote habits conducive to ply
steal ills and criminal conduct.
with an automobile for approx
mately every people in the state"
said DR.. Rawlings, "and the imminent
possibility of that ratio being cut
own as rapidly as the other become
financially able, it is matter of pub
lie concern to know that number of
very definite hazards to health and
life attach to this modern convenience
of travel. In the first place automo-
bileS are directly responsible for more
han 1920 accidental fatalities and ap-
proximately $4,000 more or less
serious injuries annually in Illinois,
but that is not the whole story by any
manner or means.
Carbon monoxide, colorless, odor-
less, poisonous gas is present in auto
mobile eXhausts. Breathing this toxic
subtance, which is very easy to do
when engines are run in closed gar
ages, has a serious and sometimes
fatal effect on the body.
More important still, perhaps, the
automobile is conducive to physical
incidence that tends to prevent eXer-
else sufficient for reasonable health.
Even the or 8 million people in the
state who have not yet purchased a
car find opportunity more and more
frequently to motor to and from work
and to replace the healthful hike with
dash to the country on balloon tires
propelled by six powerful cylinders.
Lack of a reasonable amount of eXer-
else in the open air favors the develop
ment of the degenerative diseases
such as heart trouble, nephritis and
many other complications which have
increased as a cause of mortality al
most phenomenally since the advent
of petrol vehicles.
Another danger that the automo-
bile has enhanced is the spread of
contagious diseases. Motorists seem
to insist upon drinking water found at
indiscriminate places along the high
ways and upon bathing at convenient
places TO the road without regard to
the possibility of polluted water. The
result is that typhoid fever is not in
frequently a companion of the return
trip home. Not only this but a person
suffering from such contagious dis
eases as smallpox, measles, scarlet
fever and so forth, can travel fast
and furiously by automobile.
"Of course, there are the ill health
results of immortality which the
motor car promotes and then there
is the criminal aspect involved in
theft.
Automobiles are wonderful assets
to health and happiness when rightly
used, but like every other good thing
they are dangerous indeed when their
use is abused. Pilots of airplanes are
given very rigid mental and physical
tests Semi-annually and this practice
has reduced enormously he number of
crashes. Almost anybody is permitted
to drive an auto and the death rate
from accidents grows on from year TO
year"