War phases Army reports progress in venereal disease battle, 138. Social hygiene and the war, 514. Venereal diseases in army, navy and community, 507. War's greatest credit item; you can help increase it, 234. Ventilation Experiments in air-conditioning the home, 457. Villages, Prevention of typhoid fever in small towns and, 208; see also Administration, Local health. Visiting nurse— See Nurse, Public health. Vital statistics First figures on 1917 mortality in Ohio, 349. Ohio mortality statistics, November and Volunteer health workers, 135. Waggoner, Dr. C. W.-in service, 328; see also Toledo. purification as a factor in elimination of urban typhoid fever, 200. purification positions are open, 476. Shipment of chemicals for purification expedited, 95. Some water supply lessons in a typhoid epidemic, 447. Taking a chance on unsafe supply proves costly, 474. Typhoid fever outbreak due to contamination of carelessly constructed well, 269. Zanesville, 183. See also Sanitary Engineering, Division of. monthly reports; Typhoid fever. Wellston Prosecute quarantine violator, 136. Whooping cough Cincinnati, 47, 327. Mortality, 4. Negligence of some physicians is costing baby lives, 331. Why don't communities prevent prevent- Will, E. G. Fnters service, 450. 376. Wilson, President Woodrow, endorses Chil dren's Year, 162. Winnipeg Pasteurization. 436. Women in ordnance plants, Will protect, 279. Xeria New health officer, 47; sewerage, 183; tvphoid epidemic due to water supply, 447, 474. Youngstown Contagion hospital, 232. Health officer rechosen, 135. Mahoning River sanitary problem, 383, 400. Water purification and typhoid, 200. TABLE OF CONTENTS EDITORIALS - Crowder Gives Facts on Draft Rejections - Tuberculosis Hospitals as a War Measure - Scarlet Fever Danger to Children from 2 to 10-Embalmers Must Register Renewals of Licenses The "Why of Smallpox." A Graphic Illustration - Failure to Vaccinate Another Frequent Cause -An Object Lesson in Public Health Needs - New Epidemiologist Takes Up Duties - Sew Another Star on Service Flag -Higher Milk Prices Hurt Babies' Health Health Officer Ought to Rabies (Hydrophobia), by Fred Berry, Bacteriologist, Ohio State Department Health Indications in Data on Draft Rejections.. Scorecard System in Public Health Work, by James A. Tobey, Scientific As- sistant, U. S. Public Health Service..... Chillicothe Installs More Rigid Code of Sanitary Regulations. All States Asked to Work Together to Control Venereal Diseases. Army Seeking Nurses to Increase Corps by a Thousand Percent.. Relative Values of Public Health Procedures, by Charles V. Chaplin, M. D., Among Tuberculosis Hospitals of State.. Ohio Mortality Statistics for Month of September, 1917. Public Health Nursing Service, Report for November, 1917. DEPARTMENTAL REPORTS BY DIVISIONS, DECEMBER, 1917- Division of Communicable Diseases....... HEALTH OFFICERS' ROUNDTABLE Health Budget Cut Urges General Vaccination - Can't "Farm Out" Hospital - Fight School Vac- cination Order - Assumes Office in Xenia - Difficulties of Quarantine -Health Council's Program - New Whooping Cough Procedure - To Save the Baby-Old Health Fallacies - New Health Head in Dayton The Ohio Public Health Journal VOL. IX JANUARY, 1918 No. 1 Crowder Gives Facts EDITORIALS Exponents of the "them-was-the-happy-days" school of thought have been busy for some months, deploring what they said was the physical degeneration of the modern youth as demonstrated by the alleged large percentage of draft rejections because of bodily unfitness. They have been accustomed to wind up their laments with the declaration that there was nothing of the kind back in the good old days of the Civil War draft. "We never heard of anybody being turned down for physical reasons then," was the published remark of one of these Jeremiahs not long ago. Now comes Provost Marshal General Crowder, director of all the draft machinery, and upsets all this reminiscent discussion with the aid. of a few cold figures, contained in his report to the Secretary of War. Of the 2,510,706 men examined on the first call, according to General Crowder, 730,756, or 29.11 per cent, were rejected on physical grounds. In the Civil War, he adds, the draft authorities rejected 31.69 per cent of the men summoned. In view of the advance in standards of medical diagnosis since the Civil War, declares General Crowder, the figures indicate a decided improvement in the physical condition of the young men of the nation. All of which is most encouraging to public health workers of the country. It has seemed almost incredible, when one considered the present. wide scope of governmental work in the interest of public health, as compared with the almost absolute lack of such activity in the '60's, and when one considered the great advances of recent years in medical science, that the physical condition of the young man of today should not be at least as good as then. With direct evidence lacking, however, the health worker has had to remain silent and wonder whether, if all these years of effort had resulted only in a loss of ground, it would ever be possible for the forces of right living to gain the upper hand. Now, however, the evidence is at hand, presented by the most unimpeachable authority, and it shows a marked improvement in fifty years in the health of the nation's youth. This presentation of the situation should spur on to increased effort every person engaged in the work of promoting the nation's health. Not content with the gain which has been made, every one in the health army ought to resolve that the next equal improvement shall be achieved in less than a half century. And as one surveys the present scope of work, he can hardly doubt that this will be accomplished. We are building from the ground up in child hygiene, we are educating the people to care for their bodies, we are providing nurses for the indigent and ignorant sick, we are making living conditions sanitary in both city and country, we are steadily lessening the danger of epidemic diseases, we have physicians who prevent as well as cure disease, and just now we are at last awakening to the need and possibility of stamping out the ages-old venereal disease curse. May the critics of 1970 also be proved wrong when they say the nation's health is poorer than a half century before! * Tuberculosis Hospitals An important opportunity for getting accuas a War Measure rate information as to the prevalence of tuberculosis among a large element of the population, and for following up many individual cases, is presented by the system of co-operation between the tuberculosis division of the State Department of Health and the military medical examiners. The permanent value of the information, however, is lessened by the fact that in more than half of the state facilities for the care of the tuberculous are lacking. To take advantage of its present opportunity, therefore, and also to prepare for the abnormal tuberculosis increase which can be expected to follow the return of our soldiers from the front, the State Department of Health is making special efforts to bring before the counties of the state the desirability of immediate action for the establishment of district tuberculosis hospitals. Any two to ten counties are permitted by law to combine for the erection of a tuberculosis hospital. By this arrangement, efficient care for the tuberculous can be provided in a manner much more economical than if each county had to build and conduct its own hospital. Every county commissioner owes it to his county to investigate thoroughly the possibilities of the district hospital, if his county is not already a member of an established district. Every commissioner ought |