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

December, 1927 The Health Bulletin 19
The business and economic world is
becoming more and more interested in
the issue of public health. It is beginning
to reckon in new terms the value
of health as a factor in its own wellbeing.
That is the reason for the institution
of so many public health measures, the
reason that government is reaching its
strong arm out and demanding of the
people that they do this and that in
order that the community may enjoy
a better degree of health. It cannot
THE ECONOMICS OF HEALTH
afford to be sick and that is the assumption
on which government is proceeding.
The cost of illness to industry has
never been determined Nationally, but
one prominent manufacturer with an
annual payroll of approximately $5,000-
000 estimates the total annual cost of
illness to his business, including charges
for idle machinery and loss in production,
to be $287,500. The loss to the
individuals and the community due to
the illness of his employes is estimated
to be .$303,000 annually. This takes
into consideration direct loss of wages,
indirect loss of earning capacity after
illness, medical and nursing expenses,
public expenses and charitable relief.
In a number of leading stores six
days lost per individual each year from
illness and injury proved an average
experience. For a working force of
1,000 people at an average wage of $3
per day this amounts to $18,000 a year
in direct wage lo.ss alone. Industrial
medical sui^ervision at an average annual
cost of several dollars per worker
offers one method of reducing such
losses. — The Charlotte News.
purchased a '•loan cow," known as the
"Red Cross Loan Cow," for the purpose
of lending to poor families
throughout that county who need miik
but are not able to purchase it. Come
to think about it, the Red Cross has
probably spent a lot of money in time
past that did not have anything like
the practical appeal that this undertaking
should have.
The Children's Bureau News Notes
says that "The cow was procured sometime
ago when there was reported a
pitiful case of an entire family destitute
and suffering from pellagra. Milk
was essential to their recovery, and a
cow was bought by popular subscription,
to be owned by the chapter and
loaned to the family. Since the recovery
of the pellagra victims the cow has
been loaned to other needy families, and
has been found to be an asset in the
relief work of the Red Cross chapter
which is the only organized relief
agency functioning throughout Greenville
County."
The foregoing arrangement may be
pretty bad on the cow, but it certainly
should afford a very present help in
trouble to quite a number of families
needing milk and not able to get it
otherwise.
A COW TO LOAN
There may not be anything new under
the sun, but through the Weekly
News Notes the Child Welfare Topics
sent out by the Children's Bureau at
Washington sometime ago we ran
across an item that is certainly news
to us. It may have been in practice
a long time, but the writer of this
article certainly had never heard of it
before. The item describes how the
American Red Cross chapter at Greenville,
South Carolina, sometime ago
Who Says I Am Not a Man