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

April, 1951The Health Bulletincounty Medical Societies in cooperationwith the State Board of Health. Anadditional $25,000 of ACS money hasbeen allocated to hospitals in the stateto open or improve tumor clinic facilitiesor to purchase equipment neededin cancer therapy.If we could convert volunteer serviceinto dollars and cents, the contributionfrom that direction would probably exceedthe concrete figures given above.One Unit reported 2,555 hours of volunteerwork in the Detection Center inone year. At the rate of 80(f an hour,that service would have cost the Center$2,000! The same Unit made and distributedover 40,000 cancer dressingsduring the same period. Over the counterdressings of this sort cost a cancerpatient as much as $30-$40 per month.These, of course, were free.Yes, service, professional and lay, isa major task and one that is far fromfinished or even half-way adequatelymet for the moment. There will be nolet-up in the pleas for service until themen and women of North Carolina areeducated to the point of seeking medicalattention at the first sign of adanger signal of cancer! This presupposesa working knowledge of the SevenDanger Signals on the part of everycitizen—and the intelligence to "StrikeBack at Cancer." Service for the immediatevictims is vital, to give them achance for cure; but education beforethe killer strikes is the salvation ofevery fifth person walking the streetstoday! This is our first and most imperativeassignment—to reach them beforecancer does!We need help to do this. That is why,in less than five years more than $15,-000 of our half dollars and dimes hasbeen devoted to education of professionalgroups—physicians, nurses, publichealth workers, and teachers. Thatmoney has bought not only the films fordoctors but postgraduate medicalcourses, medical symposia, and professionaljournals placed in the hands ofevery physician in the state. It hasbought workshops for nurses and teachersand short covurses in cancer forpublic health students. Four teachersfrom one covmty attended such a workshop.They requested and secured permissionfrom their superintendent toshow THE TRAITOR WITHIN at thefall faculty meeting. A teacher's life wassaved as the result of that film showing.The superintendent called on \is totell us so in person. Our ciirrent budgetfor professional education in the stateis $17,000, for public education, $39,000.But I have fallen into the common,current day practice of talking in termsof "big" money. Let us re-examine thatsixty cents. It is the same money, merelymultiplied by the number of dollarsgiven, which we dicussed a moment ago.Counties may—and many of them dosubmit projects approved by their medicalrepresentatives and receive fundsfor local administration. A number ofthe smaller Units choose to look to theState Division to match dollars withtheir Welfare Departments and to providetheir educational tools. The choiceis theirs. If they handle money on alocal budget, they must, of course, auditand account for its use at the end ofthe fiscal year. It is encouraging to seemore county Units "flexing theirmuscles", so to speak, and saying "Wecan plan the job right here at home."More important than where themoney is spent is where the results ofits expenditxire reach. Let me illustrateagain. A simple leaflet, one purchasedat the state level, made its way, as amail enclosure, into the light bills ofone of our larger towns. In a Negrorooming house that leaflet was droppedon the floor, unnoticed when the billwas opened. It was stepped on. Dirtyand tattered as it was, it still served itspurpose. One of the roomers picked itup. She promptly went to a tumor clinic.Yes, it was cancer and she was "foundin time." That little leaflet didn't costa penny, but—it saved a life. In anotherNorth Carolina city it was the leafletin a bank statement that brought abeautiful young woman to the tumorclinic. Still in her twenties, she too hadcancer. A chance to live for less thana cent!And one cancer leaflet will be avidlyread by any number of people. A tea-