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THE ATLANTIAN
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MEN’S
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TUBERCULOSIS AND THE
HIGH COST OF LIVING.
“Preventable disease, the greatest
item in which is tuberculosis and the
other expenses which grow out of it,
costs each family in the United States
at the minimum $100 a year.”
The foregoing is the verdict of a
most thorough and cautious estimate
by expert statisticians, and it errs, if
anything, on the conservative side. It
is a sentence (the nugget of the dis
course), taken from an address on
“Tuberculosis as a factor in the in
creased cost of living” delivered at
Denver by Mr. Edward F. McSweeney,
chairman of the board of trustees of
the Boston Consumptives’ Hospital.
The guess that preventable disease
has been a large share of the growing
weight of living expenses is not a new
one, but the thoroughness with which
the proofs have been searched out by
Mr. McSweeney is novel and convinc
ing. The nations have searched and
found five major causes of this in-
creas—waste, extravagance, armed
peace, inefficiency and the burden of
crime, pauperism, accident and dis
ease. By the most cautious estimate
the yearly money cost of tuberculosis
alone in the United States is $622,513,-
904, and on the present ratio of deaths
annually from this disease, as com
pared with the deaths from all other
causes, 10,000,000 of people now liv
ing will eventually die of tuberculosis.
The .average family income of this
country is something less than $800.
It has been ascertained that in Mas
sachusetts the average cost per capita
of preventable disease is $15. On a
basis of five persons to a family this
means $75, or almost one-tenth of the
family income. Of the whole popula
tion of the United States “three-
fourths of all persons of both sexes
are either actually earning money or
saving expenses by housekeeping.”
The minimum individual cost of sick
ness, loss of family earnings and death
is $2,240. Starting with the reason
able assumption that three-fourths of
the 165,549 consumptives who die an
nually are wage earners, their deaths
represent an actual loss of $278,147,-
152, and if the cost of the other deaths
is computed only at Dr. Bigg's esti
mate of $800 for three years’ medical
care during total disability the total
annual money loss becomes $311,256,
952. "In other words, the American
wage earner works one day in every
six to pay for the cost of disease and
its consequences. Who can dispute in
the face of this overwhelming proof
that preventable disease and death
have a direct influence on the cost of
living?"
The constructive part of Mr. Mc-
Sweeney’s discourse deals with the
proof, in which Boston has led the
world, that the treatment of incipient
cases is a failure, because, returning
to bad conditions, they relapse; and
that the prevention of contagion from
the advanced cases is where the re
sistance must be focused. New York
is following this lead, and it has now
been recognized by Germany. The
rigid medical inspection of school
| children is one means of prevention,
and “we will solve the tuberculosis
question when we settle the problems
of child labor, city congestion, long
hours, and bad factory and housing
conditions." This critic is emphatic
that the crusade is not one primarily
for physicians and charity workers:
“This is essentially a business man’s
crusade and should be led by the
Chambers of Commerce.”
KING, PRESIDENT AND
BIBLE.
Speaking in behalf of a few conserv
ative persons who read the Bible, we
desire to applaud the Carnegie Hall
“celebration” of the tercentenary of
the King James version, and to call
attention on our own account to the
happy unanimity with which it is offi
cially adopted. King George’s letter
congratulated persons who are obses
sed with the Carnegie Hall habit that
it (the Bible) “is so clearly interwov
en in the history of British and Ameri
can life.” President Taft jumped on
the royal bandwagon with the corai
lary observation that “its spirit (the
Bible) has influenced American ideals
in life and laws and government.”
We may therefore assume that the
enterprise attempted by forty-seven
or flfty-one or fifty-four clerics—the
number varies with the authority—
and completed by Robert Barker,
printer, in 1611, has won at last the
sanction of authority. We can not
find that King James ever accepted
the dedication of the volume which
moderns identify as King James’ Bi
ble, but that, of course, is a mere mat
ter of detail, His Royal Highness hav
ing frequently entrusted vexed ques
tions to arbitrators and left them to
“fight it out.” The things that hap
pened three hundred years ago do not
in details concern us. The present
fact that delights us, even to the point
of duplicating the plaudits of Carnegie
Hall, is that the Bible is clearly in
terwoven in British and American life
and that its spirit influences Ameri
can ideals.
During the three hundred years
there have been a few wars engaging
Christian nations, which had not their
attention absorbed by the Bible. The
newspapers today record events that
do not seem exactly to square with
precepts commended in the bulk at
Carnegie Hall; but the obvious expla
nation is that sometimes we follow
the Gospels and again the books of
Leviticus and Deuteronomy.
Such are some of the cynical and
bitter thoughts that afflict one just
before that quiet hour in which he
tries to reconcile his deeds with his
belief. He looks around at commercial
and social conditions that seem to
invite him to transgress, and he finds
no impregnable refuge in many of the
churches of today?. Yet at such a
time the words that his father read
him and his mother taught him are
that man’s safest retreat and surest
safeguard. It may be that the years
have led him to think of the Bible
as literature only; yet the years have
brought him no literature higher and
finer. And almost inevitably the day
comes—not by connivance of king or
president or self-advertising “celebra
tions”—when he wishes to receive the
sacred message of the Book, gathers
its simplicity and dignity and beauty
into his head and heart, and thanks
his God that, though his forebears
sinned and suffered, struggled and fell
short—as he has done—the Bible en
abled them at least to hold the habit
of aspiration.
A GREAT MISTAKE.
“Why didn’t you get up and give her
your seat or permit me to give her
mine?” said a woman to her husband.
They had just got off a car. The
woman’s face expressed great anxiety
of mind.
“Why should we give her a seat?”
the husband asked. “Just because she
was so richly dressed, I suppose,” he
added
“Is it possible that you did not
know her?” the wife exclaimed.
“Of course. I am not supposed to
know every well-dressed woman who
comes along.”
“Oh, James, she is our cook, and I
am afraid she will treasure up against
us our lack of courtesy.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” the hus
band exclaimed.
The woman did not reply, but,
trembling violently, leaned heavily
upon his arm.
“Indians and Suffragettes are just
alike, but neither of them are willing
to admit it.”
W. E. TREADWELL & CO.
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