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

January, 1951 The Health Bulletin 15try to publish at least one article carryinginformation which would be helpful toany reader. That idea has been the keyeffort running through every issue ofthe publication for many years. It ispleasant to know that there are readerscomprising hundreds of young peoplewho have set up housekeeping and whoare now rearing families of their ownwhose parents received the Health Bulletinthrough the years and duringwhich time the young folks became interestedin the material published.In the beginning of this new year, itseems to many people that there aremore problems confronting the worldthan at any time since the close of theDark Ages. The complexities of modernlife and the strain of living today putsgreater stress on the nervous system ofthe average individual than probablyever before in the history of the world.It Is more necessary today to takethought of the physical, mental andmoral health of the individual and ofthe public than ever before. On theother hand, more protection againstpestilential diseases is afforded the peopleof the world today than ever before.In the past, great plagues such as yellowfever, bubonic plague, smallpox andother epidemic diseases have decimatedthe population of the world. It varies inthe opinion of some historians to theextent of as much as 50 per cent of thepopulation of the world at one time.With the exception of influenza, towardthe control of which little progress hasbeen made, the great cities and thicklypopulated sections of the world are inlittle danger. All of this is due directlyto the protection afforded by the scientistsand active workers in the publichealth field.In the year that the Health Bulletinwas first published, it was the commonrule in North Carolina for every familyto have typhoid fever among some of itsmembers before the children of thefamily reached maturity, and it hasbeen estimated that at least one out offour members of the average familydied of the disease before all the otherchildren reached matiu-ity. The averagefamily lost a large per cent of thechildren born as a result of the diarrhealdiseases of childhood beforereaching the end of the first year oflife.There is a long way to go in the fieldof prevention of disease before theState reaches the position it ought tooccupy as one of the low mortalityStates, in the matter of infant deathsand deaths from such diseases as diphtheria.Diphtheria can and should becompletely prevented, but in the faceof that fact the State has had a higherdeath rate from diphtheria and a highercase rate during the last two or threeyears than most of the other States. Inthe field of total infant deaths, it hashad a little better record, but not much.The discouraging feature of the pastyear's work has been that infant deathshave not continued the downward trendstarted the year before, but apparentlya larger number have occurred thanoccurred in 1937, although completeand accurate data are not yet available.It is with confidence that the facesof public health workers in this Stateare set toward the future, and it ishoped that the new year will result ingreater progress in public health workthan ever before in the history of theorganization."NOTES AND COMMENTJune, 1939—"On the front cover thismonth, we are publishing a picture ofthe old Dr. Thomas Fanning Woodresidence, 201 Chestnut Street, Wilmington,North Carolina, where the StateBoard of Health oflBce was first set upand operated for many years, and wherethe first issue of the Health Bulletinwas published. That issue was April,1886, 53 years ago. This picture was intendedfor the April issue of the HealthBulletin as an anniversary number, butillness of the editor prevented its appearingat that time.As stated once or twice before inthese columns, the Health Bulletin wasfounded by Dr. Wood while Secretaryof the State Board of Health and issuedregularly month by month from theOflBce of the Board of Health which was