A Civic Biology Part 41

Vaccination against Typhoid.--Typhoid fever has within the past five years received a new check from vaccination which has been introduced into our army and which is being used with good effect by the health departments of several large cities.

The following figures show the differences between number of cases and mortality in the army in 1898 during the war with Spain and in 1911 during the concentration of certain of our troops at San Antonio, Texas.

1898--2nd Division, 7th Army Corps, Jacksonville, Florida.

June-October, 1898

Mean strength, 10,759.

Cases of typhoid certain and probable, 2693.

Death from typhoid, 258.

Death from all diseases, 281.

Manoeuver Division, San Antonio, Texas. March 10-July 11, 1911.

Mean strength, 12,801.

Cases of typhoid, 1.

Death from typhoid, 0.

Deaths all diseases, 11.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Comparison of cases of and death from typhoid in 1898 and 1911. What have we learned about combating typhoid since 1898?]

During this period there were 49 cases of typhoid and 19 deaths in the near-by city of San Antonio. But in camp, _where vaccination for typhoid was required_, all were practically immune. In the army at large, since typhoid vaccination has been practiced, 1908-1909, the death rate from typhoid has dropped from 2.9 per 1000 to .03 per 1000, a wonderful record when we remember that during the Spanish-American War 86 per cent of the deaths in the army were from typhoid fever.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The best cures for tuberculosis are rest, plenty of fresh out-of-door air, and wholesome food.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A sanitarium for tuberculosis. Notice the outdoor sleeping rooms.]

How the Board of Health fights Tuberculosis.--Tuberculosis, which a few years ago killed fully one seventh of the people who died from disease in this country, now kills less than one tenth. This decrease has been largely brought about because of the treatment of the disease. Since it has been proved that tuberculosis if taken early enough is curable, by quiet living, good food, and _plenty_ of fresh air and light, we find that numerous sanitaria have come into existence which are supported by private or public means. At these sanitaria the patients _live_ out of doors, especially sleep in the air, while they have plenty of nourishing food and little exercise. The department of health of New York City maintains a sanitarium at Otisville in the Catskill Mountains. Here people who are unable to provide means for getting away from the city are cared for at the city's expense and a large percentage of them are cured. In this way and by tenement house laws which require proper air shafts and window ventilation in dwellings, by laws against spitting in public places, and in other ways, the boards of health in our towns and cities are waging war on tuberculosis.

Ex-President Roosevelt said, in one of his latest messages to Congress:--

"There are about 3,000,000 people seriously ill in the United States, of whom 500,000 are consumptives. _More than half of this illness is preventable._ If we count the value of each life lost at only $1700 and reckon the average earning lost by illness at $700 a year for grown men, we find that the economic gain from mitigation of preventable disease in the United States would exceed $1,500,000,000 a year. This gain can be had through medical investigation and practice, school and factory hygiene, restriction of labor by women and children, the education of the people in both public and private hygiene, and through improving the efficiency of our health service, munic.i.p.al, state, and national."

Work of the Division of School and Infant Hygiene.--Besides the work of the division of infectious disease, the division of sanitation, which regulates the general sanitary conditions of houses and their surroundings and the division of inspection, which looks after the purity and conditions of sale and delivery of milk and foods, there is another department which most vitally concerns school children. This is the division of school and infant hygiene. The work of this department is that of the care of the children of the city. During the year 1912, 279,776 visits were made to the homes of school children of the city of New York by inspectors and nurses. Besides this, thousands of children in school were cared for and aided by the city.

Adenoids.--Many children suffer needlessly from adenoids,--growths in the back of the nose or mouth which prevent sufficient oxygen being admitted to the lungs. A child suffering from these growths is known as a "mouth breather" because the mouth is opened in order to get more air. The result to the child may be a handicap of deafness, chronic running of the nose, nervousness, and lack of power to think. His body cells are starving for oxygen. A very simple operation removes this growth. Cooperation on the part of the children and parents with the doctors or nurses of the board of health will do much in removing this handicap from many young lives.

Eyestrain.--Another handicap to a boy or girl is eyestrain. Twenty-two per cent of the school children of Ma.s.sachusetts were recently found to have defects in vision. Tests for defective eyesight may be made at school easily by competent doctors, and if the child or parent takes the advice given to correct this by procuring proper gla.s.ses, a handicap on future success will be removed.

Decayed Teeth.--Decayed teeth are another handicap, cared for by this division. Free dental clinics have been established in many cities, and if children will do their share, the chances of their success in later life will be greatly aided. Boys and girls, if handicapped with poor eyes or teeth, do not have a fair chance in life's compet.i.tion. In a certain school in New York City there were 236 pupils marked "C" in their school work.

These children were examined, and 126 were found to have bad teeth, 54 defective vision, and 56 other defects, as poor hearing, adenoids, enlarged tonsils, etc. Of these children 185 were treated for these various difficulties, and 51 did not take treatment. During the following year's work 176 of these pupils _improved_ from "C" to "B" or "A", while 60 did not improve. If defects _are_ such a handicap in school, then what would be the chances of success in life outside.

In conclusion: this department of school hygiene deserves the earnest aid of every young citizen, girl or boy. If each of us would honestly help by maintaining quarantine in the case of contagious disease, by observing the rules of the health department in fumigation, by acting upon advice given in case of eyestrain, bad teeth, or adenoids, and most of all by observing the rules of personal hygiene as laid down in this book, the city in which we live would, a generation hence, contain stronger, more prosperous, and more efficient citizens than it does to-day.

REFERENCE BOOKS

ELEMENTARY

Hunter, _Laboratory Problems in Civic Biology_. American Book Company.

Davison, _The Human Body and Health_. American Book Company.

Gulick Hygiene Series, _Town and City_. Ginn and Company.

Hough and Sedgwick, _The Human Mechanism_, Part II. Ginn and Company.

Overton, _General Hygiene_. American Book Company.

Richards, _Sanitation in Daily Life_. Whitcomb and Barrows.

Richmond and Wallach, _Good Citizenship_. American Book Company.

Ritchie, _Primer of Sanitation_. World Book Company.

Sharpe, _Laboratory Manual of Biology_, pages 320-334.

American Book Company.

ADVANCED

Allen, _Civics and Health_. Ginn and Company.

Chapin, _Munic.i.p.al Sanitation in the United States_. Snow and Farnham.

Chapin, _Sources and Modes of Infection_. Wiley and Sons.

Conn, _Practical Dairy Bacteriology_. Orange Judd Company.

Hough and Sedgwick, _The Human Mechanism_. Part II. Ginn and Company.

Hutchinson, _Preventable Diseases_. The Houghton, Mifflin Company.

Morse, _The Collection and Disposal of Munic.i.p.al Waste_.

Munic.i.p.al Journal and Engineer.

Overlock, _The Working People, Their Health and How to Protect It_. Ma.s.s. Health Book Publishing Co.

Price, _Handbook of Sanitation_. Wiley and Sons.

Tolman, _Hygiene for the Worker_. American Book Company.

REPORTS, ETC.

_American Health Magazine._ Annual Report of Department of Health, City of New York (and other cities).

Bulletins and Publications of Committee of One Hundred on National Health.

_School Hygiene_, American School Hygiene a.s.sociation.

Grinnell, _Our Army versus a Bacillus_. National Geographic Magazine.

XXV. SOME GREAT NAMES IN BIOLOGY

If we were to attempt to group the names a.s.sociated with the study of biology, we would find that in a general way they were connected either with discoveries of a purely scientific nature or with the benefiting of man's condition by the _application_ of the purely scientific discoveries.

The first group are necessary in a science in order that the second group may apply their work. It was necessary for men like Charles Darwin or Gregor Mendel to prove their theories before men like Luther Burbank or any of the men now working in the Department of Agriculture could benefit mankind by growing new varieties of plants. The discovery of scientific truths must be achieved before the men of modern medicine can apply these great truths to the cure or prevention of disease. Since we are most interested in discoveries which touch directly upon human life, the men of whom this chapter treats will be those who, directly or indirectly, have benefited mankind.

The Discoverers of Living Matter.--The names of a number of men living at different periods are a.s.sociated with our first knowledge of cells. About the middle of the seventeenth century microscopes came into use. Through their use plant cells were first described and pictured as hollow boxes or "cells." But it was not until 1838 that two German friends, Schleiden and Schwann by name, working on plants and animals, discovered that both of these forms of life contained a jellylike substance that later came to be called _protoplasm_. Another German named Max Schultz in 1861 gave the name protoplasm to _all living matter_, and a little later still Professor Huxley, a famous Englishman, friend and champion of Charles Darwin, called attention to the physical and chemical qualities of protoplasm so that it came to be known as the chemical and physical basis of life.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Prof. Tyndall's experiment to show that if air containing germs is kept from organic substances, such substances will not decay. The box is sterilized; likewise the tubes (_t_) containing nutrients. Air is allowed to enter by the tubes (_u_), which are so made that dust is prevented from entering. A thermometer (_th_) records the temperature. The substances in the tubes do not decay, no matter how favorable the temperature.]

Life comes from Life.--Another group of men, after years of patient experimentation, worked out the fact that _life comes from other life_. In ancient times it was thought that life arose _spontaneously_; for example, that fish or frogs arose out of the mud of the river bottoms, and that insects came from the dew or rotting meat. It was believed that bacteria arose spontaneously in water, even as late as 1876, when Professor Tyndall proved by experiment the contrary to be true.

As early as 1651 William Harvey, the court physician of Charles I of England, showed that all life came from the egg. It was much later, however, that the part played by the sperm and egg cell in fertilization was carefully worked out. It is to Harvey, too, that we owe the beginnings of our knowledge of the circulation of the blood. He showed that blood moved through tubes in the body and that the heart pumped it. He might be called the father of modern physiology as well as the father of embryology.

A long list of names might be added to that of Harvey to show how gradually our knowledge of the working of the human body has been added to. At the present time we are far from knowing all the functions of the various parts of the human engine, as is shown by the number of investigators in physiology at the present time. Present-day problems have much to do with the care of the human mechanism and with its surroundings. The solution of these problems will come from applying the sciences of hygiene, preventive medicine, and sanitation.