“Don’t get it?” queried Dr. Strong. “Perhaps you recall the saying of Thoreau—I think it the profoundest philosophical thought of the New World—that it takes two to tell the truth, one to speak and one to hear it.”
“You mean that we’ve misinterpreted the figures? Why, they’re as plain as two and two.”
“Truth lies behind figures, not in them,” said Dr. Strong. “Now, you’re worried because of a startling apparent swelling of the tuberculosis rate. When you find that sort of a sudden increase, it doesn’t signify that there’s more tuberculosis. It signifies only that there’s more knowledge of tuberculosis. You’re getting the disease more honestly reported; that’s all. Dr. Merritt—did you say his name is?—has stirred up your physicians to obey the law which requires that all deaths be promptly and properly reported, and all new cases of certain communicable diseases, as well. Speaking as a doctor, I should say that, with the exception of lawyers, there is no profession which considers itself above the law so widely as the medical profession. Therefore, your Health Officer has done something rather unusual in bringing the doctors to a sense of their duty. As for reporting, you can’t combat a disease until you know where it is established and whither it is spreading. So, I say, any health officer who succeeds in spurring up the medical profession, and in dragging the Great White Plague out of its lurking-places into the light of day ought to have a medal.”
“What about the other diseases? Is the same true of them?”
“Not to the same extent. No man can tell when or why the epidemic diseases—scarlet fever, measles, whooping-cough, and diphtheria—come and go. By the way, what about your diphtheria death rate here?”
“That is the exception to the rule. The rate is decreasing.”
Dr. Strong brought his hand down flat on the table with a force which made his cup jump in its saucer. “And your misnamed Public Health League proposes to take some action against the man who is shown, by every evidence you’ve suggested thus far, to be the right man in the right place!”
“How does the diphtheria rate show in his favor any more than the other death rates against him?”
“Because diphtheria is the one important disease which your medical officer can definitely control, and he seems to be doing it.”
“The only important one? Surely smallpox is controllable?”