Henry Baird Favill, AB, MD, LL.D., 1860-1916, a ... - University Library

MEDICINE AND PUBLIC HEALTH 215
loss of service during that period. It makes the expense
account $2,355,000; a total estimated loss in one year to
this community of $7,565,000.
I shall not stop to discuss any fallacies that may lie in
this argument. There is enough truth to it and it is sufficiently
accurate to show that the actual waste of resources
in this community, due directly and indirectly to consumption,
is colossal.
This is worth bearing constantly in mind.
I desire to emphasize it for one specific reason : the impulse
to step in and relieve this situation is greatest from its
humanitarian side. Everyone of you is stirred most deeply
by the knowledge of suffering and distress of your fellowmen.
On the other hand, I think history will show that
plans of relief and methods of remedy are more stable, more
cogent, and more easily established from the economic
side, and it is obvious that it is an important factor. But
again, we must face the picture of the suffering surrounding
the situation. The heart-rending struggle of the breadwinner
to keep up; the mental anguish he suffers as he sees
the fight going against him; the actual suffering of himself
and his children; the long drawn out period of hopelessness;
the enormous risk of infection to the other members of the
family, and the cumulative probability of disease from
exposure, starvation, and discouragement; all of these things
can be put truthfully into a picture so harrowing that even
the hardened medical man can scarcely face it. Time forbids
me to dwell upon it.
Finally, we must face this fact: the tendency of this
disease, of course, is to develop in unhygienic conditions,
in the congested districts; the tendency, moreover, and this
is a most pathetic fact, is for the disease which developes
outside of those districts, of necessity to drift into those
districts. The result is that as long as we have congested
districts undealt with in this direction, so long shall we have
a focus of tuberculosis from which will emanate constantly
and unavoidably the infective germ which scatters itself