A sanitarium for tuberculosis. Notice the outdoor sleeping rooms.
Ex-President Roosevelt said, in one of his latest messages to Congress:—
"There are about 3,000,000 people seriously ill in the United States, of whom 500,000 are consumptives. More than half of this illness is preventable. If we count the value of each life lost at only $1700 and reckon the average earning lost by illness at $700 a year for grown men, we find that the economic gain from mitigation of preventable disease in the United States would exceed $1,500,000,000 a year. This gain can be had through medical investigation and practice, school and factory hygiene, restriction of labor by women and children, the education of the people in both public and private hygiene, and through improving the efficiency of our health service, municipal, state, and national."
Work of the Division of School and Infant Hygiene.—Besides the work of the division of infectious disease, the division of sanitation, which regulates the general sanitary conditions of houses and their surroundings and the division of inspection, which looks after the purity and conditions of sale and delivery of milk and foods, there is another department which most vitally concerns school children. This is the division of school and infant hygiene. The work of this department is that of the care of the children of the city. During the year 1912, 279,776 visits were made to the homes of school children of the city of New York by inspectors and nurses. Besides this, thousands of children in school were cared for and aided by the city.
Adenoids.—Many children suffer needlessly from adenoids,—growths in the back of the nose or mouth which prevent sufficient oxygen being admitted to the lungs. A child suffering from these growths is known as a "mouth breather" because the mouth is opened in order to get more air. The result to the child may be a handicap of deafness, chronic running of the nose, nervousness, and lack of power to think. His body cells are starving for oxygen. A very simple operation removes this growth. Coöperation on the part of the children and parents with the doctors or nurses of the board of health will do much in removing this handicap from many young lives.
Eyestrain.—Another handicap to a boy or girl is eyestrain. Twenty-two per cent of the school children of Massachusetts were recently found to have defects in vision. Tests for defective eyesight may be made at school easily by competent doctors, and if the child or parent takes the advice given to correct this by procuring proper glasses, a handicap on future success will be removed.
Decayed Teeth.—Decayed teeth are another handicap, cared for by this division. Free dental clinics have been established in many cities, and if children will do their share, the chances of their success in later life will be greatly aided. Boys and girls, if handicapped with poor eyes or teeth, do not have a fair chance in life's competition. In a certain school in New York City there were 236 pupils marked "C" in their school work. These children were examined, and 126 were found to have bad teeth, 54 defective vision, and 56 other defects, as poor hearing, adenoids, enlarged tonsils, etc. Of these children 185 were treated for these various difficulties, and 51 did not take treatment. During the following year's work 176 of these pupils improved from "C" to "B" or "A", while 60 did not improve. If defects are such a handicap in school, then what would be the chances of success in life outside.
In conclusion: this department of school hygiene deserves the earnest aid of every young citizen, girl or boy. If each of us would honestly help by maintaining quarantine in the case of contagious disease, by observing the rules of the health department in fumigation, by acting upon advice given in case of eyestrain, bad teeth, or adenoids, and most of all by observing the rules of personal hygiene as laid down in this book, the city in which we live would, a generation hence, contain stronger, more prosperous, and more efficient citizens than it does to-day.
Reference Books