The Health bulletin [serial] - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

June, 1927 The Health Bulletin 21
personal hygiene, the teacher's health
and first aid. The feature that makes
this course differ from those ordinarily
given is the practice demanded by the
actual inspection of children for possible
defects, in vision, hearing, teeth,
throat, weight and in making records
of conditions found. Instructors are
asked to impress upon their students
that rhe inspections required of teachers
does not at all mean an examination,
but only an intelligent inspection
of their pupils in order to detect
obvious physical defects, and visible
symptoms of disease, so as to inform
parents of the existence of such handicaps
to school work, and to recommend
medical attention. North Carolina
needs such a law as this if we are to
continue to progress in medical school
inspection,"'the removal of physical defects,
the teaching of personal hygiene,
and the prevention and control of contagious
diseases.
Farm Tenancy Important Item
Next to the lack of education in matters
pertaining to public health in the
rural sections of our State, probably
the greatest obstacle to public health
progress is the poor economic status of
a large per cent of our rural people.
One hundred and twenty-eight thousand
of our farmers own no land and
belong to the tenant class. Forty-five
per cent of the farms in North Carolina
are operated by tenants, and a
still greater per cent in other Southern
States, except Tennessee. It is obvious
that the tenant farmer, constituting as
he does, so large a proportion of our
rural population, must profoundly influence
the social, moral and health
conditions of our rural people. The
character of this influence will depend
largely upon an intelligent and sympathetic
consideration of the tenant
farmer and his problems, by the State
and local governments, the land owners,
and all social and welfare agencies.
There is no doubt that the farm tenant
system is detrimental to the people
of our State, from a public health as
well as an economic standpoint. The
influence of the tenant class on public
health in the rural sections is reflected
in the high incidence of typhoid fever
and bacillary dysentery each year.
Problem of Further Typhoid Reduction
in Rural Sections
The reduction of the death rate in
typhoid fever from 35.8 per one hundred
thousand in 1914 to 9.8 per hundred
thousand in 1925, has had a great
deal to do with the popularity and
success of public health work in North
Carolina, but it is doubtful if the present
rate of typhoid fever and bacillary
dysentery can be changed in the rural
sections, until the thousands of rural
homes, particularly those of the farm
tenants, are provided with at least the
fundamental necessities of disease prevention,
namely safe water supplies,
sanitary privies and screened homes. A
sanitary privy and a deep driven well
properly located, can be provided at any
rural home with very little expense. I
have seen owners of large plantations
spend enough money in one year for
medicine and professional services, in
cases of typhoid fever and colitis
among tenant families to provide sanitary
privies and safe wells for all the
tenant homes on the farm. The tenant
as a rule has to pay these obligations,
the result largely of the neglect of the
land owner to provide the ordinary
means of protection.
You are familiar with the many obstacles
met with in trying to protect
the tenant class of people from disease.
The general public, particularly the
large land owners must be better educated
along this line. We must show
them that from an economic standpoint
it is cheaper to provide their
tenants with safe water and proper
sewage disposal. An old Latin proverb
says "as is the commander so is
the soldiers." In the matter of public
health "as is the land owner so is the
tenant." If the landlord is interested
and cooperative the tenants will usually
be int^ested.
Breast Feeding
An eminent health authority has
said that the fundamental work of a
health department is to change customs
and habits. If this be true we still have
many problems ahead of us. So another
problem which I present for your consideration
is the weaning of babies
without cause, and the nursing of