To establish an independent health service : speech of Hon. John D. Works ... in the Senate of the United States, Monday and Tuesday, April 29 and 30, 1912.

  • Works, John D. (John Downey), 1847-1928.
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: To establish an independent health service : speech of Hon. John D. Works ... in the Senate of the United States, Monday and Tuesday, April 29 and 30, 1912. 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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    We had a talk with the girl's attending physician and he said it was outrageous. Such talk should never be allowed in even one in- stance, etc. He gave us the privilege of using his name, hut, as he has stated, he is not an agitator and he is not one to stir things up much. I hope you will advertise this, for it needs all the publicity we can give it. Mr. Weston is writing an article for us this week and we are going to send out 500 of them to the parents of school children. We have a meeting of the executive committee of the league this afternoon and we will plan something in the way of a protest. We are doing all we can to have it eliminated from the schools, and if they want to give such talks to give them to the adults. With best wishes to all, Sincerely, Frances W. Spearman. Mr. President, see bow this idea grows. Here is another en- lightened guardian of the public health proposing to educate children in the knowledge of disease by introducing moving pictures of the ravages of tuberculosis and disease germs. He got the idea from a young girl who had learned to describe the formation and construction of tuberculosis bacillus to a surprising degree, he says. And she got this gruesome in- formation from illustrated lectures in Carnegie Hall, in New York. Here is the account given of it by the Memphis Press: As to the paths to be pursued before this term end by public-school children in search of facts pertaining to health welfare, it is probable that a child shall lead them. For it was a child's knowledge of things beyond the ken of physiology textbooks in the public school which set Dr. M. Goltman, city healther, to thinking out a plan for furthering the knowledge of school children in the matter of health. As a result lectures on health subjects, illustrated by moving pictures, will sooner or later become a feature of public-school instruction. This will follow the advent of more school inspectors, which Dr. Goltman is now striving to have added to the meager force. I got my idea from conversation with my 13-year-old niece in the East, said Dr. Goltman. She was able to describe the formation and construction of tuberculosis bacillus to a surprising degree, aDd slie knew other things a growing child should know, and knew them in the right way. I was astounded, and asked if she learned those things in school. She said no ; that she attended illustrated lectures at Carnegie Hall and like places, because she was interested. These places are open to those who care to attend in New York, but I thought to myself, ' Why not build up a course of study and instruction in the public schools along those lines?' And if I have my say, Memphis will have the first regular course in its public schools of health and hygiene with the aid of moving pictures, thus going New York one. better iD its estimable work. One would think this fearful raid on the health and lives of the children might stop there. But the doctors seem to be vie- ing with each other in efforts to disease the minds of innocent children and ignorant adults. At the sixty-fifth annual meet- ing of the Ohio State Medical Association Dr. C. C. Probst, of Columbus, in an address on The protection of child life, said: More progress would be made if no further effort were made to teach old dogs new tricks, but attention should be devoted to the training of the school children in hygiene and sanitation and physical education. This would mean a new man in school life—a school physi- cian. It would mean school supervision, not school inspection. And at the sixty-first annual meeting of the American Medi- cal Association, at St. Louis, June, 1910, the use of the theater as a means of conveying information about disease and disease germs was recommended. Dr. Masyck P. Ravenal, of Madison, Wis., had this to say on the subject: In regard to the use of the theater for instructing the public along the lines of preventive medicine, may I tell you what we have done in Wisconsin ? Many of you have probably seen ncrtiees in the news- 41017—10969