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

:l rightIPUBU5ALD BY TML nOR.TA CAgO LIhA 5TATL BOAigD s^MEALW] i_BjVol. xxvm. MARCH, 1914. No. 12.HEALTH BREVITIESYour county has just as muchhealth as it cares to purchase."Why protect the pig and forget thechildren?"—Senator Owen, Oklahoma.The fellow that's afraid of vaccinationnever saw real smallpox.The first and prime condition of goodgovernment is good health.It is only twenty years ago thatmedical inspection in schools wasstarted in the United States. GreatBritain and Germany began the practicesome years earlier.We keep school records of the mentalequipment of our children. Whynot keep physical records of eachpupil from the time he enters untilhe graduates?Investigation has shown that toothdecay is by far the most prevalentphysical defect among school children.Chicago has ten dental dispensariesfor the care of the teeth of its schoolchildren. North Carolina has none."Vaccination against smallpox shouldbe a requisite to admission to anyschool, public, parochial or private,and periodical re-vaccination, particularlyintimes of epidemics, obligatoryto continued attendance at school."—Dr. S. Adolphus Knopf.Unless your doors and windows arewell screened it will do little good touse the fly swatter. The swatter is allto use to kill the few flies thati get in despite the screens and yourvigilance. But it is a waste of timeand labor\to use the swatter in thei unscreened house.In measles there are cases that neverbreak out, and in whooping coughthere are cases that never whoop.However, these cases are just as"catching" as any.You don't need to apologize for allyour flies when friends and neighborsdrop in to see you. Your friends andneighbors know just as well as you dowhere those flies come from.We eat three times a day, but wemust breathe eighteen times a minute.And every breath we take should beof good, fresh air, not stale, secondhandor used, cast-off air, either.Few of us will eat tainted food, butmost of us breathe tainted air. Thismoves us to say that if we were ascareful about the air we breathe as weare about the food we eat, the deathrate from the dirty air diseases wouldsoon reach the vanishing point.