Ohio's health. v. 9, 1918

the men have been in camp, is the prevention of some 13,000 cases of venereal disease. This is the number of men who would have had sex maladies, gonorrhea or syphilis, had they stayed in civil life, and who have remained healthy and fit only because we went to war.

"This figure is conservative: reckons only our advance, in the conquest of this disease, over the army conditions of peace times. If civilian figures were available, the credit would be greater.

"Our measure of success in stamping out venereal disease has come from compulsory education in the army, from medical treatment, disciplinary measures, and from community co-operation. The army rate for peace times, although it was a gratifying reduction from civil rates, still was higher than our present figure because of the indifference of the public.

"Community sources of infection were not within the control of our medical corps. Now that the army is growing to millions, and every family or so has a son in it, we find it easier to arouse interest. Sources of infection are being wiped out, prostitution suppressed, alcohol prohibited, education on the subject promoted, and wholesome recreationa! facilities provided in camp and community. The next six months should make a better showing."

With the words here quoted Surgeon General Gorgas of the United States Army opens an article on "The Credit Side of Our War Ledger" in Collier's Weekly. In them you read the official pronouncement of the army authorities on the importance of the campaign against venereal diseases and of the results it has achieved.

Full credit, it will be noted, is given to civilian health agencies which have co-operated with General Gorgas and his corps. State and local authorities, backed by the aroused community interest to which General Gorgas refers, have given valuable assistance in the movement and the surgeon general is quick to acknowledge this support.

Of special significance to these civilian coworkers is the last sentence of the paragraphs quoted from General Gorgas' article, which may well be italicized: "The next six months should make a better showing." The accomplishment of such a result will entail a still greater increase in preventive work. With the steady growth of popular sentiment for suppression of venereal infections, however, this increase should involve no great difficulties.

Ohio's newly adopted regulations for the control of venereal diseases are printed in this magazine. With the publication of these regulations, duty calls to every physician and health official. The enforcement of these rules, and the exercise of every other means possible for the restriction and prevention of venereal diseases, is a matter of prime military necessity.

Will you enlist for this fight-the biggest battle you can enter on this side of the Atlantic?

Shall We Continue Low Typhoid
Prevalence Through Summer?

A bit of encouragement for all who are interested in lowering Ohio's typhoid rate is found in the monthly totals of cases reported during the first five months of the present year. The five months' total of 537 cases represents nearly a fifty-percent decrease as compared with the average for the corresponding months in the five-year period 1913-17. It represents also a decrease of 231 under the January-May, 1917, figures.

Monthly totals for 1918 are: January 107, February 105, March 119, April 99, May 107. This May figure may be increased slightly by late reports, but not enough to change the total materially It must be remembered also that case reports are not as reliable a basis for comparison as death totals.

Nevertheless, when the reduction is as great as we have shown it to be this spring, there is good ground for hope that preventive work will be continued during the summer with enough effectiveness to make 1918 a new "low year" for typhoid fever in Ohio.

To fall back now would be little less than disgraceful.

Typhoid Prevention Is Summer
Duty of Every Health Officer

Last month's issue of the OHIO PUBLIC HEALTH JOURNAL was devoted to typhoid fever prevention.

The subject was covered so thoroughly in that number that any further discussion this month would be largely a repetition.

Typhoid prevention, however, should occupy a prominent place in the plans of every local health officer in Ohio throughout the summer. Work during the hot months is what is needed to bring about an appreciable reduction in Ohio's typhoid death rate.

During the latter six months of the year two-thirds of the state's typhoid deaths occur. During the four months from August 1 to November 30 one-half of the typhoid deaths are recorded.

Efforts from now on through the fall months will count for more than efforts at any other period in bringing the rate down.

We appeal to every health officer in the state to consider this 1 local problem. The keynote of the statewide anti-typhoid campaign which should mark this summer is that typhoid fever is easily preventable. The local health officer is the man who must do much of the work of proving that statement true.

Read over again the advice on typhoid prevention presented in last month's JOURNAL. Then get busy and put into effect in your own community as many as possible of the preventive measures there suggested.

New Regulations Compel Quarantine of Whooping Cough Cases

Cases of whooping cough must now be quarantined in Ohio. That is the central fact of the new regulations, published in this magazine, for the control of this disease which annually takes such a heavy toll of child lives. Heretofore the question of quarantining whooping cough has been left to the discretion of the local health authorities. The result has been in most localities that no control whatsoever has been exercised over victims of the disease. They have been allowed to run at large, scattering the infection among their associates, with the result that almost any case was likely to produce an epidemic.

This situation has been allowed to exist chiefly because the public has refused to consider whooping cough a serious disease. Health officials themselves in many instances have taken the view that it is useless to attempt to control the disease and that besides the danger of serious results is very slight.

Statistics of past years, which have been quoted in previous issues of this JOURNAL, prove this view to be unfounded. Whooping cough kills more children than scarlet fever or measles. It ranks second only to diphtheria as a death-dealing agent among the childhood epidemic diseases. Its heaviest toll is among babies. In the years 1911 to 1915. inclusive, 1,882 Ohio infants under two years of age died of whooping cough.

This, then, is the serious disease menace which the new regulations are designed to control. The enforcement of the new rules is largely in the hands of the local health officials of the state.

They should familiarize themselves with the details of the procedure outlined in the regulations, should insist that physicians report cases promptly and completely and should at once adopt a policy of strict enforcement of the rules, feeling confident as they do so that they are performing a great service in behalf of the children in their districts.

* * *

What April Statistics Mean
to Ohio's Baby-Saving Campaign

Ohio seems to have accomplished a certain degree of "baby-saving" during the opening month of Children's Year. While, as explained in the discussion of the month's statistics elsewhere in this magazine, accurate figures for comparison are not yet available, conservative estimates indicate that the month was marked by a reduction in infant mortality which is by no means neglible, even though it is not enough to meet the state's monthly quota.

A few counties and cities accomplished satisfactory improvements during the month, others little more than held their positions and still others registered losses instead of savings. To all these classes it may well be pointed out that too great assumptions must not be based on one month's statistics. Those communities which are shown in the table to have saved their quotas in April should remember, lest over-confidence bring them to disaster, that they must "make hay while the sun shines" by piling up large savings in the spring months to balance the heavy midsummer mortality.

In short, the figures for April are presented purely as a matter of information and should not cause the slightest change in any community's plans, other than by encouraging it to redoubled effort.

Physicians Who Can't Go
to War Can Serve at Home

* * *

As has been outlined from time to time in these columns, the Division of Industrial Hygiene of the State Department of Health is devoting a large share of its attention this year to the investigation and improvement of health conditions in war industries. The very foundation of such a study must be the collection of data regarding the prevalence of occupational diseases among workers in these industries.

In theory the most obvious means of obtaining such data is the reports of occupational diseases which physicians are required by the statutes to send to the State Department of Health. Unfortunately,

« Forrige Fortsett »

Bøker

Ohio's health. v. 9, 1918, Volum 9