Through their discoveries in the science of prevention, they have been the means of saving thousands of lives, not only for one year but for all years to come. They have won the admiration of the American people and deserve their most hearty support.
And yet, when it is proposed to co-ordinate the various public health activities of the Government in order to increase the efficiency and usefulness of this splendid body of men, the interest of our countrymen in this service seems to end with admiration. For notwithstanding our confidence and appreciation we have permitted a small but active body of people who are more concerned in treating disease than in preventing it to block the consummation of this thoroughly sensible and business-like consolidation of the various bureaus under one responsible head.
We have many educational agencies at work throughout the country which are directly or indirectly arousing public interest in health conservation, but this experience emphasizes the need for a permanent central organization to stimulate interested people to back up their judgment with action, and no organization is better fitted to render this invaluable service than this National Conservation Congress.
At the last session of this Congress Dr. Harvey Wiley told you something about the dangers of impure food, drink and drugs, and what was being done to guard the public against them. Your individual interest was excited. How long did it continue? Were any of you inspired to give actual support and assistance in the enforcement of the pure food laws or to any other official public health activity? To be interested and to agree is not enough—again, we must act, individually as well as collectively, and stimulate others to act.
States.—The same lack of practical support of the public life-saving service exists in most of the States. The appropriations for the public health work of our State departments can only be characterized as trifling. The exception is Pennsylvania, which is paving the way for a fully adequate health service, as was explained to you at the third session of this Congress in the able paper of Mr. A. B. Farquhar.
The appropriation for the Pennsylvania State Health Department is about 48 cents per capita. Arkansas makes none at all, the State of New York spends about 1.7 cents; Massachusetts, 4.2; Florida, 10; Indiana, 1.8; Kansas, 2.7; Virginia, 1.9, and so on.
Municipalities.—We have many cities with active and efficient health officers, but there is not a city in this country with an adequately equipped and financed health department. Not one of them has sufficient financial support to successfully perform its task, which must be measured by the preventable sick and death list in each community. And we must not confine this list to contagious affections. It must include an educational campaign against all preventable diseases.
The duty of the State to teach our people, through the health departments, how to avoid preventable disease of all kinds that they may live healthful and productive lives, is just as imperative as is the duty of teaching them, through our schools, how to avoid illiteracy and how to live intelligent and useful lives.
While health appropriations have increased over former years, all of our cities place the value of property far above that of human life in applying measures to prevent waste. Here are a few examples:
In 1911, fifty of our important American cities, with an annual preventable death list of 117,724 people (which means an economic loss of at least $200,000,000) spent through their public service to prevent life waste, an average of 30 cents per capita, and through their fire departments to prevent fire waste, $1.63 per capita.