OUR NATION'S HEALTH IN 1914

Hello, I hope you enjoy this article from my 1914 almanac.


COMMUNITY HYGIENE FOR AMERICA

OUR NATION'S HEALTH

ONE does not have to make long journeys to discover people who pin unwavering faith to "wise saws," often with an entire disregard for accompanying modern in­stances. In a consideration of the subject of health there are two of these proverbs that come to mind. "What is everybody's business is no­body's business" and "It takes the exception to prove the rule."

Our nation has a gigantic problem to solve in its appalling death rate and the astounding size of its disability figures. This solution must be reached by the American people, not alone by departments of health, either' Federal, State, or local. This is "everybody's business," and the sooner everybody realizes it the sooner will the national health im­prove. You see our first adage here gets the sup­port of the second.

Statistics, often from their very size, lose their meaning in human life or human suffering or eco­nomic waste. Let us take them in tabloid form and see how they affect us. Early last year the bulletin of Chicago's health department quoted these statements:

More than one-half the sicknesses and fully one-half of the deaths in our most enlightened communities are from the preventable diseases.

Over 6,000,000 people will die from preventable causes in the next ten years, at the present loss rate.

Over 1,500,000 people are ill at all times from preventable diseases.

More than 25,000 are killed and 300,000 at­tacked by that chief of the filth diseases—the American plague—typhoid fever.

Over 285,000 people are killed by the impure-air diseases each year—150,000 from tuberculosis and 135,000 from pneumonia.

Over 200,000 infants under five years of age die annually from preventable diseases.

Of the 20,000,000 school children of this country not less than 75 per cent, need attention for physi­cal defects which are prejudicial to health.

The sum of $500,000,000 is a low estimate of the annual economic loss from preventable deaths.

Doesn't that make it sound different? Do you notice how often the word preventable occurs there or is implied? Prevention! Here's where another old adage still holds good. An ounce of it is better than a pound of cure.

Prevention of disease is one of our biggest prob­lems and into it two all-embracing considerations come: personal hygiene and community hygiene.

On the first of these America is being continu­ally lectured, and when all the lectures are boiled down they are but one word—cleanliness. Clean skin, clean mouth, clean blood and clean muscles— yes, and one might add, clean mind and clean heart—these spell health. All the admonitions on diet, on exercise, on sleeping, breathing and cloth­ing, on the use of the toothbrush and the bathtub, lead to one end—cleanliness. It was a wise adver­tising man who coined the phrase, "Clean teeth don't decay," and it might almost be paraphrased: clean people escape a mighty lot of sickness. We can say with all reverence, praises be that the bathtub is becoming less and less a stranger in our land every year.

Of the subject of community hygiene we hear far less, though it is in every way as vital. Here again, all arguments and all advice lead to that talisman—cleanliness—and this time it is not a matter for consideration in our spotless bathrooms or comfortable and airy bedrooms. That's only one-tenth of it. Did you notice that reference to typhoid fever? "That chief of the filth diseases— the American plague." Here is a strong indict­ment. How guilty are we? When we have an­swered that question we will also have disposed of a host of other scourges from spotted fever or spinal meningitis, yellow fever, infantile paraly­sis, tuberculosis and pneumonia, down to "la grippe," which, like the poor, we always have with us.

Once more we are back to our text—cleanliness. But _this time we must change its meaning. Writing of a tour in Japan some years ago, Sara Jeannette Duncan said: "The back yard in the American sense is as completely unknown to Ja­pan as the empty lobster can that usually deco­rates it" That can, whether it held the plebeian tomato or the aristocratic lobster, and its usual accompaniments, are a national accusation. Oh, if we could only guess the ills we owe to dirty back yards! Yes, that word dirty is used with full in­tention. The belittered haunt of the prowling Thomas tabby is guilty of many crimes. In the first place it's ugly. And anything ugly that can be made passably good-looking by neatness owes a debt to humanity that is long overdue. In the second place, it harbors all sorts of decaying things, breeding the disease-carrying fly and con­taminating the very air above it. There ought to be an amendment to the Constitution, making it anybody's legal right to raise a row over a dirty back yard, either his own or his neighbor's. Cleanliness of premises is a duty to self and to society. Most of us would rather hate to be accused of poisoning our neighbor's baby! That duty is the same whether our neighbor is just over the fence in a congested city block or four miles away across the valley.

This brings us to the two greatest of our com­munity health problems, water supply and sani­tation. If our homes are located in a city, town, or village where duly elected or appointed officers have these matters in hand, we have done our duty when our taxes are paid and our votes cast for the most efficient possible management of these affairs. But many thousands of Americans are not so located, and on the ranch or farm, or in the smaller village, each must be his own sanitary officer.

Then the problems arise. Is the world giving me and my household what it owes—pure water? Am I doing my duty to myself, my family, and my neighbor in the sanitary arrangements of my premises?

The first question is by far the easier to answer, for investigation will tell the whole story. If the conditions are doubtful, they are not hard to set right. What is the source of your water supply? Is it a spring or an artesian well? Fine. But look to your piping. Keep the water as pure as God gives it. Is it a well or a stream? Have a care. Know your soil, its composition, and the direction of slopes both on and below the surface. Is there any chance of contamination by drainage from any neighboring cesspool or barnyard? An unsuspected dip of rock or clay may be putting into apparently pure, sparkling water that which it is sickening even to consider, making a fertile field for typhoid and other germ diseases.

Its sewage disposal and its barnyards are the shame and menace of rural America. Our cities, with vast expenditure, are fighting disease. What's the use if from their sources of milk and butter supply, two of the most easily contami­nated necessities, they run the constant risk of infection? The American farmer faces a stern duty, whether he be "small" or "large," poor or rich, and no matter in what form his produce is added to the wealth of the world. That duty is cleanliness. Cleanliness of supply, of output, and of premises.

Easier said than done? Yes, admitted; most worth-while things are; but there is the clinching argument: It pays—pays in health, in develop­ment, both mental and physical; pays in appear­ance, in self-respect, and, not least of all, in dollars.

No reasonable expenditure is too great for the proper care of these> problems. The day of cheap power in the gasoline engine, the hot-air pump and the windmill is ours. That helps vastly. Then, too, cement is no longer a mystery to be handled by experts; and as an aid to cleanliness of premises it is high in the list.



HEALTH SUGGESTIONS AND BIRTH REGISTRATION

Colds
It behooves our people to give full and immedi­ate attention to "colds."
A cold is an infection, and a person with a cold is an infection-bearer. Govern yourself accordingly.
Keep away from a person with a cold. It's catching.
The victim of a cold is in a receptive condition for other and more dangerous infections.
Neglect a cold and you invite more serious de­velopments.
Pneumonia kills more people than any other disease and it reaps its greatest harvest in winter­time; that's why we call it the Winter Plague.
Pneumonia is a dirty house disease; it is de­veloped in ill-ventilated houses, not in the pure air of outdoors as many people believe. You can't contract pneumonia in pure air; you can very easily contract it in impure air. And remember this: you can't keep your house closed and have pure air within it. A closed house is a filthy house—no matter how fine the furnishings may be or how clean the visible things may appear. The most important thing in every home is that invisible thing—air.
Get good air and you'll keep in good health.

Diphtheria Pointers
Diphtheria and membranous croup are one and the same thing.
Diphtheria is highly contagious. It is a pre­ventable disease.
If treated properly and early enough it can be cured.
Sore throat, chilliness and fever in children are danger signals. Look out for trouble. Call in a good doctor immediately.
A very severe case can be contracted from a very mild case.

Do You Legally Exist?
The following item appeared not long ago in the daily papers:
"NO SUCH PERSON; AND SO CAN'T WED
"By United Press Cable.
"PARIS, January 6.—You cannot be married, be­cause legally you do not exist, was the Lorient registrar's answer to Mlle. Kergue's application to wed. Her birth had not been recorded."
Do you legally exist?
Have you legal proof of your parentage? In other words, has your birth been recorded? This is a matter of rapidly increasing importance in this country.
Failure to record the birth of children to-day will most surely result in much trouble for the man or woman to-morrow. Give your child legal evidence of its existence and of its parentage and save it future trouble and embarrassment, if not worse.

Measles Pointers
Measles is an extremely contagious disease and among infants it is highly fatal.
Ninety-five out of every hundred deaths from measles are among children under five years of age.
It is the height of absurdity to expose a child to measles so that "it may have it and get over it."
It develops in from seven to eighteen days after exposure, usually fourteen.
The disease is especially contagious before the eruption appears.
Immediately isolate a child showing symptoms of measles. Then get a doctor.

Airy Paragraphs
Dirty air kills more people than dirty water, dirty milk and dirty food combined.
Dirty air is the kind found in a closed house, a house without ventilation.
The .best method of ventilation, available to everybody, is the open window.
To be light and airy flood the home with sun-shine and fresh air.
The time to get fresh air is yesterday, to-day and to-morrow, last night, to-night and to-morrow night—all the time.
The End


We seem to take our health for granted these days, it didn't use to be that way. As you study back across history you will find our ancestors had to fight to stay alive in just every day living. It seemed there was some sort of nasty that would jump up and bite you with serious repercussions. I some times think how great it would have been to live in the old days. Until you read how they were dropping like flies when disease would make it's appearance and thin the population out substantially. I am thankful for the health I and my family have.

But sometimes when no one is looking I still wonder how it would have been to farm the old fashion way. I guess the truth be known I am thankful just to be free and on a farm, praise God!

Sleep free, sleep save my friend.

For all is well down on the farm.

The Old Farmer