Evening star., 1928-12-04
BACKGROUND OF EVENTS
BY PAUL Y. COLLINS.

| parent cause is a dangerous symptom.
Next comes the cough which hangs on
and refuses to be reached by cough
medicines. Then loss of weight fol-
| lows. and the patient reports "indiges-
| tion," but the indigestion" is not due
to weakness OF the stomach, but to tu-
berculosis Of the lungs.
| *s* y X
| Science is making great advances in
| fighting tuberculosis. though the dis
ease is not yet fully conquered. CAL
mette of the PaSteur Institute in Paris
| is doing constructive research in con-
nection with babies. He vaccinateS
| with "non-virulent" virus when the
child is days old and separates the
child from its mother at that age. 1t
| is made immune by this vaccination,
according to the doctor, but the treat
ment is challenged by other doctors,
who claim to find that the virus may
| be virulent. The treatment Is still
| experimental.
| The most scientific investigation car
| ried on in America is by DR.. William
| Charles White of this city, chairman of
| the medical research committee OF the
| National tuberculosis Association. Bac-
| terra cultures are developed until great
| quantities are created-a pint at
! time-and these are chemically ana
| lived. All this work is too technical
| to be of practical interest to the lay
man. Yet the layman alone can sup
port it, through supporting the "Asso-
| citation for the Prevention Of Tubercu-
losis." and the one method which in
| terests the layman in that support is
that of buying the Christmas seals now
being sold at the rate of 100 for 81
seals that may adorn letters and
Christmas gifts.
The sale of Christmas seals is the
only way the work is being financed.
It is worth while, for the pulmonary
tuberculosis death rate in the District
of Columbia in 1900 was 1873 among
whites and in 1925 it was only 40 per
thousand population; among colored
people it was 592 in 1900 and 245 in
1925. Intelligent following of scientific
discovery and treatment operates In
saving 1874 whites per thousand per
year and 247 colored victims, who would
have perished.
In all classes but one, marvellous I'M
provement has been made by science
in the last 20 years, in fighting tuber-
culosis.
The statistics of the U. S. Veterans
Bureau reflect the improvement in the
cures of tubercular cases; June 80,
1924, the hospitals held 1887 such
cases and on June 80, 1927 only 6,956
"a betterment of some 1900. On the.
same dates, the neuropsychiatric cases
showed an increase in three years OF
more nerve cases than the decrease OF
tubercular cases. Even in the last
year there is a marked betterment ir
tubercular cases. On November 80,
1927, the hospitals held 1882 tuberculaI
patients, and october 81, 1928, only
6,74l.
The one class which shows no i'm
provement but an increase OF the dis
ease is that of young women between
is and IS years of age. Girls have
taken up the suicidal fad of wanting
to be slender so they starve themselves
into consumption. Similar conditions
prevail i'll France and other countries,
except that in England the fad has
not been taken up and English girls
are growing robust. In America the
girls want to be of "boyish slimness,'
and the result is ghoulish sickness,
ending in consumption. So that age
Is to 25--iS now recognized as the
dangerous age" Also the silly, sui
cidal age
Loss of weight is not always attribut-
able to shortneSs of nutritive food but
to wrong foods and especially to over
worry or overdisSipation in social af-
fairs Rest! Rest! with fresh air and
plenty of correct&food are what doc
tors prescribe. Not medicine.
= x
The story OF the Christmas seal is as
romantic as any of the Arabian
Nights" stories. 1t tells of miracle.
The idea was first utilized during the
Civil War, when, in 1862. a group of
Northern women held fairs" through
out the North. at which post offices
sold charity stamps" and raised more
than a million dollars in two years for
the care of Union soldiers in hospitals.
Thirty years later, in 1892, when the
Red Cross Society had been we'll eS-
tabliShed in many nations, similar
stamp to raise funds for the Red Cross
was used in Portugal. In 1904 DAN
ish postmaster, Elmer Holboell, re-
invented the stamp for raising funds
to build a tubercular sanitarium for
children of Denmark. Thence the idea
reached America again. in 1907, through
a letter bearing one of the novel stamps
to Jacob Riis. a Dane living in New
York City-a philanthropiSt and friend
Of President Roosevelt. Mr.. RiiS wrote
an article for the Outlook Magazine
telling about the stamp and that in
spired Red Cross worker, Miss Emily
P. BiSSell of Wilmington, Del, who was
undertaking to raise funds to build a
tuberculosis sanitarium near Whining
ton. She used the sale of stamps, and
succeeded in selling $4,000 of them for
her sanitarium. The next year she in
duced the National Red Cross Society
to use the stamps for tuberculosis funds.
So the Red Gross handled that work
for 10 years. raising increasing amounts f
from $l35.000 the first year up to a
total in its 10 years of $35 900 900.
financing an enterprise which now
holds hospital property valued at SITS
O0O,000 with maintenance cost of $40.-
100000 year. That accounts for the
wonderful life-saving of two-thirds Of
the annual white victims and more
than half of the colored. The sale
of the stamps IS now exclusively han
died by the National Tuberculosis AS
sociation. the Red Cross having turned
ii over to that organization after the
fun development of the work.
IcepyriEht. 1898. By Psal v. collsns.I