The nation with the keenest sense of justice and the highest standard of intelligence and morals—virtues which some of us modestly claim for our people—is the one which should place the highest value upon human life and surround it with the greatest protection.
How would our civilization rank by this method of measurement? What have we already accomplished in preventing life waste? What is our present loss? How can it be reduced?
We may well rejoice over the achievements of the patient heroes of the laboratory and of the unselfish and devoted men of medicine who have provided, disseminated and applied the knowledge of prevention so far as it has gone. To them, to the press, the clergy, and the other good men and women who have helped spread the gospel of disease prevention belong the chief credit for the reduction of the death rate by nearly 25 per cent. in the past thirty years.
To these benefactors of our race is also due the honor of initiating and developing the widespread interest which now prevails throughout our country in the conservation of health and life. They have demonstrated that morbidity and mortality can be reduced—that human life can be prolonged by spreading and applying our present knowledge of the science of disease prevention. At the close of last year we had to the credit of these life savers over 400,000 lives that would have been lost that year if the death rate of 1880 had still prevailed.
If the present thirst for knowledge of health and life conservation continues to increase, it is not only possible, it is reasonably certain that during the next thirty years the present death rate of 15 per 1,000 population in the registered area will be reduced to 10.
While we have every reason to felicitate ourselves upon this wonderful result of the spread of life-saving intelligence, we must not overlook these facts:
1. That this great life-saving movement is still in its infancy.
2. That it has been directed almost wholly against preventable contagious diseases, and that the waste of life from these maladies has only been reduced—the loss is still excessive.
3. That while we have reduced the mortality from these diseases common to infancy and early adult life, the degeneration diseases of middle life and old age, against which we have waged no war, have been steadily increasing.
4. That we have increased the average length of human life only by increasing the proportion of people living in the younger age periods, while the average duration of life of those who pass into middle life and old age has been constantly shortened.