Civics and Health

by William H. Allen

Three fundamental rules of action should be established as firmly as religious principles:

1. The public health authorities should be told of every known and every suspected case of tuberculosis.

2. For each case proved by examination of sputum to be tuberculous, the public-health officers should know that the germs are destroyed before being allowed to contaminate air or food.

3. Sick and not yet sick should practice habits of health that build up vitality to resist the tubercle bacilli and that abhor uncleanliness as nature abhors a vacuum.

FIGHTING TUBERCULOSIS WITH A NATIONAL ORGANIZATION

All laws, customs, and environmental conditions opposed to the enforcement of these three principles must be modified or abolished. If the teachers of America will list for educational use in their own communities the local obstacles to these rules of action, they will see exactly where their local problem lies. The illustrations that are given in this book show in how many ways these rules of action are now being universalized. Three or four important steps deserve especial comment:

1. Compulsory notification of all tuberculous cases.

2. Compulsory removal to hospital of those not able at home to destroy the bacilli, or compulsory supervision of home care.