“THE NEGLECT OF HEALTH A NATIONAL EVIL”
“The Department of Agriculture spends seven million dollars on plant health and animal health every year, but, with the exception of the splendid work done by Doctors Wiley, Atwater, and Benedict, Congress does not directly appropriate one cent for promoting the physical well-being of babies. Thousands have been expended in stamping out cholera among swine, but not one dollar was ever voted for eradicating pneumonia among human beings. Hundreds of thousands are consumed in saving the lives of elm trees from the attacks of beetles; in warning farmers against blights affecting potato plants; the importing Sicilian bugs to fertilize fig blossoms in California; in ostracizing various species of weeds from the ranks of the useful plants, and in exterminating parasitic growths that prey on fruit trees. In fact, the Department of Agriculture has expended during the last ten years over forty-sixmillions of dollars. But not a wheel of the official machinery at Washington was ever set in motion for the alleviation or cure of diseases of the heart or kidneys, which will carry off over six millions of our entire population. Eight millions will perish of pneumonia, and the entire event is accepted by the American people with a resignation equal to that of the Hindoo, who, in the midst of indescribable filth, calmly awaits the day of cholera.
“During the next census period more than six million infants under two years of age will end their little spans of life while mothers sit by and watch in utter helplessness. And yet this number could probably be decreased by as much as half. But nothing is done.
“In the United States alone, of the eighty millions living to-day, all must die, after having lived, say a little more than three billion, two hundred million years of life, on the average slightly more than twoscore years. Of these years, one billion, six hundred million, represent the unproductive years of childhood and training.
“Consider that the burden of the unproductive years on the productive years is 20-20, or say 100 per cent. Could the average length of life be increased to sixty years, say to forty-eight billion years lived by eighty millions of people, the burden of the unproductive years would fall to 50 per cent. In the judgment of men competent to hold opinions, this is not impossible.”
It was the reading of this paper, which led to the formation of the Committee of One Hundred on National Health, of which Professor Irving Fisher of Yale is president, and which includes among its members such men and women as Ex-President Eliot of Harvard, Dr. Lyman Abbott, Miss Jane Addams, Luther Burbank, Horace Fletcher, Professor Chittenden, Dr. Kellogg, and Dr. Trudeau.
The primary and immediate purpose of the Committee’s work is to promote the idea of a national Bureau of Health; but the field open to the committee includes the whole subject of public sanitation and hygiene. President Roosevelt has formally endorsed the work, in a letter from which the following is an extract: “Our national health is physically our greatest national asset. To prevent any possible deterioration of the American stock should be a national ambition. We cannot too strongly insist on the necessity of proper ideals for the family, for simple life and for those habits and tastes which produce vigor and make more capable of strenuous service to our country. The preservation of national vigor should be a matter of patriotism.... Federal activity in these matters has already developed greatly, until it now includes quarantine, meat inspection, pure food administration, and federal investigation of the conditions of child labor. It is my hope that these important activities may be still further developed.”
And in his notable message to the country, rather than to Congress, which he issued in December, 1907, President Roosevelt wrote: “There is a constantly growing interest in this country in the question of public health. At least, the public mind is awake to the fact that many diseases, notably tuberculosis, are national scourges. The work of the State and City Boards of Health should be supplemented by the constantly increasing interest on the part of the national government. The Congress has already provided a Bureau of Public Health, and has provided for an hygienic report. There are other valuable laws relating to the public health connected with the various departments. This whole branch of the government should be strengthened and aided in every way.”
As somebody said before, these things are no more true because a President has said them; but the fact that President Roosevelt has said them, has given wide publicity to them, and impressed them upon the public consciousness.
The knowledge that economic conditions;—the way in which men and women live because they have to so live in order to earn a living, is the fundamental factor in the case of public health, is something that is bound to become recognized as the growth of knowledge goes on. It will only be a question of time before men and women will see that in order to have health, it will be necessary to organize all the affairs of life with a view to the well-being of humanity as a whole.
In order to make effective the work of the Committee of One Hundred, its President, Irving Fisher, assisted by Professor Norton, organized the American Health League, which has absorbed the Public Health Defense League, an organization formed for the purpose of fighting the patent medicine evil, and awakening public interest in matters of hygiene. The Health League already numbers nine or ten thousand citizens, who are pledged to give financial and moral support to the work of the Committee of One Hundred in its efforts to establish a national Bureau of Health. The League is rapidly increasing in membership, for a spirit of interest in hygiene is abroad in the land. Local advisory committees have already been formed in more than two hundred cities and towns, and it is planned to prosecute the work of multiplying these branch committees until every town in the United States shall be represented in the membership. The Committee of One Hundred publishes the magazine American Health as its official organ, and all American men and women who are interested in the spread of the new hygiene are invited by the Committee to correspond with its Executive Secretary, Drawer 30, New Haven, Conn.
Connected with the advisory and other subcommittees, are committees of writers, editors, and newspaper men, numbering many of our most prominent penmen and pressmen, and the power of molding public opinion through this channel alone is very great. There is now being organized a Council on Co-operation, to consist of the leading officers of American religions, fraternal, learned, secret, and educational organizations; and also a Council of Research, to consist of leading investigators interested in original research along public health lines.
In other words, the Committee of One Hundred has grown to a compact, well-organized, rapidly-spreading, national Army of Health. It has grown within a wonderfully short period, simply because there was a great and pressing need for it.
Professor William H. Welch, a member of the Committee of One Hundred, and Professor of Pathology at Johns Hopkins University, has put himself on record as saying that if the nation were to apply in practice the existing knowledge of hygiene, the nation’s death rate would be cut in two. In commenting on this statement, Irving Fisher said:
“The greatest asset of all, the physical health of our citizens, is still neglected. Professor Nicholson, an economist of Scotland, has estimated that the living capital of Great Britain is worth five times the physical capital. That is, if we capitalize each man’s working capacity and add together this capitalization throughout the whole realm of Great Britain, the value of the population so obtained is five times the value of all the land and all the railroads and all the buildings, and all the iron mines and all the other capital which is ordinarily called wealth. If we could make this human capital within the United States double its present worth (it is already five times that of the inanimate capital), it is evident what an enormous improvement would ensue as compared with the possible improvements in saving arid lands, and other physical resources. Our health has much more than a money value. But these calculations show that even on the most materialistic method of reckoning, there is truth in Emerson’s statement, “the first wealth is health.”
APPENDIX
Diet List
| Proteid | Carbo- hydrate | Fat | Water | Mineral Matter | Food Value per pound calories | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Broiled tenderloin steak | 23.5 | 0 | 20.4 | 54.8 | 1.2 | 1300 |
| Lamb chops, broiled | 21.7 | 0 | 29.9 | 47.6 | 1.3 | 1665 |
| Smoked ham, fat, edible portion | 14.3 | 0 | 52.3 | 27.9 | 3.7 | 2485 |
| Roast turkey, edible portion | 27.3 | 0 | 18.4 | 52.0 | 1.2 | 1295 |
| Fricasseed chicken, edible portion | 17.6 | 2.4 | 11.5 | 67.5 | 1.0 | 855 |
| Cooked bluefish, edible portion | 26.1 | 0 | 4.5 | 68.2 | 1.2 | 670 |
| Canned salmon, edible portion | 21.8 | 0 | 12.1 | 63.5 | 2.6 | 915 |
| Fresh oysters, solid | 6.0 | 3.3 | 1.3 | 88.3 | 1.1 | 230 |
| Boiled hen’s eggs | 13.2 | 0 | 12.0 | 73.2 | 0.8 | 765 |
| Butter | 1.0 | 0 | 85.0 | 11.0 | 3.0 | 3605 |
| Full cream cheese | 25.9 | 2.4 | 33.7 | 34.2 | 3.8 | 1950 |
| Whole cow’s milk | 3.3 | 5.0 | 4.0 | 87.0 | 0.7 | 325 |
| Wheat flour, entire wheat | 13.8 | 71.9 | 1.9 | 11.4 | 1.0 | 1675 |
| Boiled rice | 2.8 | 24.4 | 0.1 | 72.5 | 0.2 | 525 |
| Shredded wheat | 10.5 | 77.9 | 1.4 | 8.1 | 2.1 | 1700 |
| Macaroni | 13.4 | 74.1 | 0.9 | 10.3 | 1.3 | 1665 |
| Brown bread | 5.4 | 47.1 | 1.8 | 43.6 | 2.1 | 1050 |
| Wheat bread or rolls | 8.9 | 56.7 | 4.1 | 29.2 | 1.1 | 1395 |
| Whole wheat bread | 9.4 | 49.7 | 0.9 | 38.4 | 1.3 | 1140 |
| Soda crackers | 9.8 | 73.1 | 9.1 | 5.9 | 2.1 | 1925 |
| Ginger bread | 5.8 | 63.5 | 9.0 | 18.8 | 2.9 | 1670 |
| Sponge cake | 6.3 | 65.9 | 10.7 | 15.3 | 1.8 | 1795 |
| Apple pie | 3.1 | 42.8 | 9.8 | 42.5 | 1.8 | 1270 |
| Custard pie | 4.2 | 26.1 | 6.3 | 62.4 | 1.0 | 830 |
| Indian Meal pudding | 5.5 | 27.5 | 4.8 | 60.7 | 1.5 | 815 |
| Fresh asparagus | 1.8 | 3.3 | 0.2 | 94.0 | 0.7 | 105 |
| Fresh lima beans | 7.1 | 22.0 | 0.7 | 68.5 | 1.7 | 570 |
| Dried lima beans | 18.1 | 65.9 | 1.5 | 10.4 | 4.1 | 1625 |
| Cooked beets | 2.3 | 7.4 | 0.1 | 88.6 | 1.6 | 185 |
| Fresh cabbage, edible portion | 1.6 | 5.6 | 0.3 | 91.5 | 1.0 | 145 |
| Dried peas | 24.6 | 62.0 | 1.0 | 9.5 | 2.9 | 1655 |
| Green peas | 7.7 | 16.9 | O.5 | 74.6 | 1.0 | 465 |
| Boiled potatoes | 2.5 | 20.9 | 0.1 | 75.5 | 1.0 | 440 |
| Fresh tomatoes | 0.9 | 3.9 | 0.4 | 94.3 | 0.5 | 105 |
| Baked beans, canned | 6.9 | 19.6 | 2.5 | 68.9 | 2.1 | 600 |
| Apples, edible portion | 0.4 | 14.2 | 0.5 | 84.6 | 3.0 | 290 |
| Bananas, yellow, edible portion | 1.3 | 22.0 | 0.6 | 75.3 | 0.8 | 460 |
| Oranges, edible portion | 0.8 | 11.6 | 0.2 | 86.9 | 0.5 | 240 |
| Peaches, edible portion | 0.7 | 9.4 | 0.1 | 89.4 | 0.4 | 190 |
| Fresh strawberries | 1.0 | 7.4 | 0.6 | 90.4 | 0.6 | 180 |
| Dried prunes, edible portion | 2.1 | 73.3 | 0.0 | 22.3 | 2.3 | 1400 |
| Almonds, edible portion | 21.0 | 13.3 | 54.9 | 4.8 | 2.0 | 3030 |
| Peanuts, edible portion | 25.8 | 24.4 | 38.6 | 9.2 | 2.0 | 2560 |
| Pine nuts, edible portion | 33.9 | 6.9 | 49.4 | 6.4 | 3.4 | 2845 |
| Brazil nuts, edible portion | 17.0 | 7.0 | 66.8 | 5.3 | 3.9 | 3265 |
| Soft-shell walnuts, edible portion | 16.6 | 16.1 | 63.4 | 2.5 | 1.4 | 3285 |