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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    papers of the play In Germland. This was given by the young, ladies taking work in the department of bacteriology and hygiene at the University of Wisconsin. The characters were all dressed in cos- tumes representing as nearly as possible various germs as we see them in stained preparations, both the useful and the harmful germs being represented. No charge was made for admission, cards of invi- tation being issued. It was given as a department matter for our own entertainment and instruction, yet the demand for admission from outside taxed the resources of our hall to the utmost, and throughout the country the greatest interest was excited. Our stage scenery was made as instructive as possible. We showed dirty roller towels on the wall, spittoons, garbage cans marked No. 23, the common drinking cup, the common sponge, the feather duster, the broom—emphasizing as much as possible the bad features of such things. We had a large rat trap containing the rats which the women have been wearing in their hair so much of late. A garbage barrel filled with broken bottles and tin cans was called the Germ-ania Theater, and the play announced was The Place, the Man, and the Germ. These things as we presented them were quite amusing. They catch the popular eye and at the same time give a great amount of instruc- tion to those who have never thought on such matters before. This play is being revised and improved, and during the coming year is to be put on the stage by professionals. I am sure this sort of work will do an enormous amount of good in educating the public. But the height of cruelty and folly seems to have been reached by the Kansas State Board of Health. It has published a ' health almanac. In its number of December, 1911, the board assumes to let the people know what diseases they may look for- ward to each month in the year. It opens with a repulsive pic- ture of a woman cruelly pitted with smallpox, with the state- ment under it, Never vaccinated. But this is not really the worst of it. They take a page of their so-called almanac for a disease with the following headings: January for smallpox, February for pneumonia, March for measles, April for whooping cough, May for good wells and good water, with the cheering statement for May that— Bad or impure water is more dangerous than the deadliest poison and always affects those who drink it. Wells are polluted by organic matter getting into them. This matter comes from human beings or from animals and is always bad for those who drink it. If it comes from a case of typhoid or from a person who carries typhoid germs and gets into the well it will produce typhoid fever in those who drink it. June for infants' complaints, July for flies and mosquitoes, August for typhoid fever, September for diphtheria, October for scarlet fever, November for colds and influenza, and December for consumption. These doctors, if they are worthy of the name, know that two great causes of disease are fear and suggestion and that sugges- tion is the prolific cause of fear, disease, and death. And yet they deliberately send out broadcast, at public expense, a sug- gestion—probably a false one, but that makes no difference— that in each month of the year a specific and deadly disease may be expected and feared. It is the refinement of cruelty and the depth of ignorance in a matter of life and death if it is not malicious. This persistent suggestion of disease and its alleged causes is creating more disease and sacrificing more lives than are all the germs that have been discovered or imagined by man. Mr. President, I said a moment ago that I thought the height of cruelty and folly had been reached by the State board of health of Kansas, but I have discovered something even worse 41917—10969