A seven years' campaign : review of manoeuvers and statement of results of the tuberculosis movement in New York State outside of New York City / by Homer Folks.

  • Folks, Homer, 1867-1963.
Date:
[1914]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A seven years' campaign : review of manoeuvers and statement of results of the tuberculosis movement in New York State outside of New York City / by Homer Folks. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    It will be seen that almost as many persons voted for the hospital as voted for Governor. In as much as a minority of the voters many times decide important questions submitted to them, this result is significant of the effect of our edu- cational efforts. People know that tuberculosis is preventable and are willing to tax themselves to prevent it. THE NEW HEALTH LAW. There are some bi-products of any such movement as this running over a period of years which could not be foreseen at the beginning. One of the bi-products of the tuberculosis movement as a whole, is undoubtedly of greater importance than any direct results that we aimed at. You never know the strength and adaptability of a tool until you try to use it; until you measure it up against a good-sized job. The English people did not realize the weakness of their army until they had to fight the Boers. The Russians did not know their weakness until they fought the Japanese. The state did not know the effectiveness of its entire health machinery, including the health law, the local health officers, the local health board and the State Department until it was measured up against a good big job. The glaring inconsistencies in the law, the enormous gap between the local health officer and the State Department became apparent only when the whole apparatus was measured up against as big a job as the prevention of tuberculosis Now in no spirit whatever of criticism, and merely for the purpose of utilizing the fact that the term of office of the health commissioner was coming to a close for an improvement instead of a retrograde in the situation, those primarily interested in the tuberculosis work sought and secured the appointment of a special health com- mission a year ago last winter. That Commission would have been unable to operate effectively except for the aid given it by our tuberculosis committee. We cast our bread upon the political waters of the State, confident that in due season it would return. We placed our staff, or a portion of it, and our time and our means, such as they were, at the service of that Commission. We can properly say, speaking broadly, that whatever of change has occurred in the State Health Department, in the Public Health Law, in the last two years, is a bi-product of the tuberculosis movement. How great that change is and what it forecasts for the future of the State, not only as to tuberculosis, but as to all sorts of things, I am not sure we, any of us, fully realize. I suppose the health officers realize it more than the people gen- erally. It seems to me impossible that it was only a year ago that the health officers of the State were in conference in the city of Utica; that the chief authorities of the Department were openly ridiculing the work of the Public Health Commission, throwing all kinds of doubt on the new public health law and recommending the abolition of the Public Health Council. Now we have a Department with a com- missioner of the highest authority. He has brought from Washington the best vital statistician in the country, and you can accept statistics that come from that office exactly at their face value. The diagnosis from the state's laboratory can now be relied on and human life can safelv be staked on their results; communicable diseases are