Evening star., 1938-01-23
BY THOMAS r. HENRY.
UNCLE SAM in poor health?

The results, just reported by the
United States Public Health Service, super
flcially look rather alarming-2, 500, 900
persons sick of chronic diseases, 5000, 900
sick every day, and obviously inadequate
medical care for the poor.
One might jump to the conclusion that
Uncle Sam is suffering from pcrnicious
anemia bad heart, hardening of the
arteries, a broken leg and ulcers of the
stomach, besides not being quite right in
his head. The difficulty is that there
is no other similar record. either for q
nation or a generation, with which COM
parsons can be made. If such a record
did exist. it is almost certain, there would
be shown An almost sensational improve
ment over any period in the past-in most
respects The United States, in spite of
Its strenuous outdoor life and relative eco
nomic prosperity, has never had much to
boast about so far as the health of its
people was concerned.
There has never been any other far
reaching health census. No people, it
seems, ever before has considered a stock
taking of its primary wealth, the vitality
OF the average man, woman and child,
really worth while. The picture of the
past must be pieced together from dis
connected fragments, such as the following
description of Americans from the Lon
don Times exactly 100 years ago:
1OO-Year Old Opinion.
"The men are generally dyspeptic
Though often tall their limbs are not
developed, the muscles of the arm and
cheeks are Sunken, the cheek bones high,
both sexes are very subject to badness,
and early loss Of teeth is common. The
incipient man Eve take an extreme case)
is thin, frail creature His face is
sharp and sallow and has bleared and
bilious appearance. His back can be
spanned with both hands, and some hand
room to spare. AS for the city girl, her
waist is waspish, her foot minute The
chances are that she stoops or limps has
cold, and does no blooming without the
aid of rouge.
In some parts of the Union the race
certainly is fine, although marked by the
same character of leanness and absence
of rounded outlines. The Kentuckean or
Tennessean is about the last man who
could be charged with want of muscular
power.
Nobody will use the arms or legs with
out prospect of remuneration. Gentlemen
will never walk if they can possibly drive,
and when they have no particular object
IN going anywhere, they sit down and
smoke. Boys in intervals of school hours
are far more likely 20 read newspapers
than run or junp.p The only sports of
the American are shooting and driving
both of which may be INDUCED in with
out any great fatigue"
Anemic Race.
European visitors actually wondered if
such pale, stoop-shouldered anemic race
could survive long, They recalled that
century before the great French naturalist,
Button had advanced cogent arguments
that the white race must deteriorate in
America. Were not all the American ami
mails smaller and weaker than the Old
World creatures of the same families?
Consider the lion and the puma, Button
said Eventually there would be the same
difference between the European and the
American.
Sanitation did not exist. Doctors were
few, and for the most part, very bad. For
very few diseases was there q rational
treatment, in either the Old World or
the New America met bad situation in
two ways 1t dosed itself with worthless
nostrums. At least so per cent of the
advertising in the current journals was
for proprietary medicines-mostly whisky
with some f1avoring ingredients. It ra-
tionalized bad health as fashionable A
vast number OF Americans actually would
have been proud of the Public Health
Service census If it had been published in
1888. Good health was looked upon as
somewhat vulgar. Strong body, weak
head was popular saying
The London Times had commented on
the sallow compilations of American girls.
compared with their rosy y-cheeked English
sisters. The girls themselves in the Cooley
print days would not have been greatly
offended by such comparison, for there
was an ill-defined current idea that a
healthy appearance was a stigmata of
the lower classes. Some of the most
popular beauty recipes were designed to
eliminate any traces of it-such as wash
Ing the face in milk to remove tan.
tuberculosis Fashionable.
tuberculosis, the great scourge of youth,
actually was fashionable Young women
tried to create an impression that they had
the disease, whether they did or not by
making their faces as pale as possible and
cleverly decorating the cheeks with little
spots of red. It was virtuous to die young.
There was very large cult Of death wor-
shippers, catered to by the poets, painters
and song writer's. MY Darling Nellie
Gray, Sweet Alice Ben Bolt" and
Score Of other such songs which have not
survived were the hymns of the cult. This
death-and- tuberculosis cult deserves more
consideration than it has received in psy-
geological studies of its most gifted in
4erpreter Edgar Allen Poe.
Leaving aside rambling reflections on the
poet, the present doctors report-the doc
tor was DR.. L. H. Thompson of the Ma
tional Institute of Health-doesnt indi-
cate that Uncle Sam had better take to
his bed and call in a lawyer to draw up
his will. He is fairly robust-much more
%. there is every reason to believe, than
ever before in his l62 years of existence.
Mir hA ie c,,hioct fn ro1dc ood shou,c