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

ularly in the school houses. In thisway every section of every county inthe State can be reached, and untoldgood will result. In my county, membersof our local society have donejust such work as this. We have usednot only the school houses, but alsothe churches, and we find that the peoplealways attend these lectures. Thepublic is beginning to see that there issomething in sanitation.The highest form of service whichthe medical profession can performfor mankind is in the prevention ofdisease. It is in the study of the preventionof disease that medicine hasno rivals, and is least likely to be misunderstood.This realm is not invadedby the charlatan, the pseudoscientificsect, or the patent medicineman. These are all zealous in thetreatment of disease, but the scienceof medicine differentiates itself fromthem in that, while they are concernedfor the sick, scientific medicineis searching out the causes of diseaseand applying preventive measures.Medicine, as an organized profession,is the only great movementhaving as an aim the reduction ofmorbidity by preventing the well frombecoming sick. Intelligent and scientificeffort in the prevention of diseaseis tangible and can be measured, andis freer from confusion than is treatment.In the treatment of disease theforces of nature are just as kind to themercenary quack, with his "incomparableelixir," as they are to the conscientiousand skilled physician. Thepatients of both will recover. Therapyis the inexact part of medicine.We all know what preventive medicinehas done with cholera. The samemay be done with typhoid fever. The15,000 persons who died of typhoidfever in the United States during thepast year are a needless sacrifice, formedicine has developed the knowledgewhich, if applied, would make typhoidfever an unknown disease. MedicineTHE HEALTH BULLETIN.261-----^has perfected the knowledge of thisdisease and the means for its prevention,and the people want the diseasestopped, but the representatives of thepeople are busy with mergers and tariffsand appropriations and jobs, whilethe pale faces of those 15,000 dying ofa preventable disease are seen only bythe profession of medicine. Whensome community is awakened by an awfulepidemic, it arouses itself and localmeasures are applied, always successfully,to prevent the disease, but whatis done for a village should be donefor the state and nation. This will bedone,—it should be done now—andthen typhoid will pass into history, aconquered disease.Give Facts About Alcohol.The time has come when we shouldtake a positive stand on the questionof alcohol. We know the harm thatalcoholic beverages are inflicting uponthe people. The ravages of alcohol areas well known as those of typhoid.Weknow them so well that we scarcelyneed to discuss them among ourselves.We know how much weaker is the resistanceto disease on the part of theman who has habitually taken alcohol.We know the frightful mortality inpneumonia and Bright's diseaseamong drinking men. We know thefrequency and dangers of deliriumtremens, occurring, as it often does, inmen who have drunk daily but neverin amounts to produce intoxication.We know the difficulties experiencedby the drinking man when he requiresa surgical operation. It devolves uponus to instruct the public as to the dangersof alcohol, just as it does to instructthem concerning the dangers ofpolluted water or bad milk. Alcoholis not a food. It causes one-tenth ofthe deaths in the United States, andyet the people spend over $2,000,000,-000 yearly for the poison. It devolvesupon us to give the facts to the public.I am not a fanatic on the subject