Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-06-15
Continued From First Page.)

variations of such laws which are
detrimental to human health.
The bill authorizes the Use of the
site now occupied by the Hygienic
Laboratory and adjacent lands owned
by the Government for suitable and
adequate buildings for the use Of the
institute as well as the acquisition of
additional sites In or near the District
Of Columbia.
Public health Investigations by the
Federal Government were first author
lied in 1901. ."Since then" states the
committee heport. "commendable prog
ress has been made and many new
facts discovered which have had an
important bearing on the control OF
disease The necessity for this work
far outstripped the facilities for its
conduct"
Reid Hunt of the Harvard University
Medical School told the committee that
never in the whole history of the
world have the efforts to improve
health conditions been so far behind
the advance In other sciences. The
applications to public health are Ger
tainly tagging, simply because there are
no good places to study them as they
should be studied"
Pointing to the fact that the United
States has Jagged behind in medtco-
scientific advances because of its lack OF
ADEQUATE research facilities, such as the
National Institute of Health will pro-
vide, the report showed that the big
advances made in medicine in the past
so or 10 years, with a few outstanding
exceptions, have been Of foreign origin,
and the roots of many OF them have
been in the German laboratories, sup
kaI Hary he
The first duty of the state Is the
care of the health of It's citizens" said
DR.. w. ]. Mayo IN a letter read before
the committee. by means Of public
health measures in the last go years
the average life Of man has been pro-
longed IL years. This extraordinary
result has been brought about through
researches by medical men and has
been possible only through the CO.
operative labor of many Investigators.
The physician in his ministrations ap-
plies for the benefit Of his patients the
best which science offers"
THE public health movement has
demonstrated with complete assurance
that, at the present time, with all or
our health advances, hundreds OF thou
sands of lives are sacrificed to ignorance
and neglect and that the total eco
nomic money value of these lives is
close to 5000, ooO, 0Oo," Louis l. Dublin,
statistician of the Metropolitan Life
Insurance Co., stated in a letter to
Senator Ransdell. "Preventable dis
ease, likewise, costs US well over $1,000
000,00 q year. These are the stakes
for which the public health program
Is playing"
The scope of work coming under the
National Institute of Health is very
great. An idea as to some Of the prob
lens awaiting solution is clearly set
out in a recent study made by the
Public Health Service of the cases of
sickness in a typical small town, and
reported to the committee. Translated
into terms of the population of the
United States 1t Is shown that the
number of persons suffering from minor
sicknesses in 1927 were as follows:
Colds and bronchitis. Sc, 232, 900
Influenza and grippe. IT, 1874, 900
Diseases of the digestive
system ............ ,58s. 900
Tonsilitis and sore throat. 1884, 900
Diseases Of the nervous, sys-
tenn, including headaches. 1922, 900
Measles ................. 4,104, 900
Whooping cough ......... 2,712, 900
Rheumatism and lumbago. 2,616,o00
Heart and other circulatory
diseases .................. 2,196,ooo
Hay fever and asthma. .... 100000
Major Diseases Excluded.
1T must be remembered that these
figures do not touch on the more
dreaded diseases, such as cancer, tuber-
culosis, etc." says the report. Fur
thermore, 1t should give rise TO serious
thought when we read from the report
of DR.. George T. White, secretary and
manager of the Association of Life In
surance Presidents, that while the
death rate among policyholders of the
81 legal reserve life insurance COM
pa1ies. was 328 per 100000 policy
holders in 1921, nevertheless the cor
responding figures for 1927 were S235
g decrease of only as deaths per
100000, which is equivalent to a de-
crease of only 0045 of per cent, and
this in spite of all the wonderful de-
velopments in science during that
! period of six years"
The system of fellowships for re-
searches Of demonstrated proficiency
as provided In the bill, is regarded as
q most important one. These fellow
ships would offer inducement and op-
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