200,000 lives have been saved from death from tuberculosis. Preventive medicine generally measures its success by the number of lives saved. A battle in which 20,000 lives are lost would stir the world at the time, and would fill the pages of the historian of the future. Preventive medicine in this country has averaged 20,000 lives a year saved in the last ten years. The average of human life has been increased nearly four years in the last ten years. The average of human life in the United States today is fifty years, and if we were to apply exactly what we know today and never learned anything more, the average human life in this country would be increased about fifteen years more. Are there facts more forceful than these and are not the people of the United States sufficiently intelligent to appreciate them? Since I began the practice of medicine, scarlet fever has been reduced in its death rate from 54 per hundred thousand in the registered area to 6. Diphtheria has been reduced from 1117 to 18. Typhoid fever, about which we have been so slow, has been reduced from 34 per hundred thousand to about 16 per hundred thousand. In 1880 only 17 per cent of the entire population of the United States was included in the registered area, compared with 61 per cent at present, and we want to make this complete. We want to obtain complete morbidity statistics and show the people their value. I think that the people will be intelligent enough to respond." Stand Up Straight and Avoid Tuberculosis. The first essential in the avoidance of tuberculosis of the lungs, or consumption, is to keep the lungs strong, so that if the germs are breathed they can do no harm. One of the most important things in keeping the lungs strong is to keep the chest wide open so that the lungs can be properly used. If the body is drooped or stoops, or if the shoulders are allowed to drag forward (round shoulder), or if the head is carried forward instead of well back over the shoulders, the chest must be flattened, the breathing must be shallow, and the lungs, not being freely used, become weak. It is in this type of chest that tuberculosis usually begins. The consumptive is usually narrow-chested, with drooped shoulders and with the head craned forward. While the development of a strong, well-formed chest is one of the most important factors in preventing tuberculosis, the same thing is to be desired if the disease has once started. Not only should we live in the open, but we should stand up straight and learn to "throw a big chest," so that the lungs can grow strong and the fresh air be taken in. The runner, the singer, or any one who is obliged to make sustained effort is taught to stand and sit with the chest high so that the lungs can be used to the best advantage, and if every one would do the same thing there would be less tuberculosis because there would be fewer weak lungs. The State Board at its meeting in Parkersburg, November 29th, 1913, examined the papers of the applicants for licensure and granted license to the following, who succeeded in making the required grade of 80%: Walter H. Point, Huntington, W. Va.; V. L. Wetherby, Filbert, W. Va.; J. B. Whittington, Winston-Salem, N. C.; George W. Abersold, Salama, W. Va.; George Vane Scott, Weirton, W. Va.; A. W. Crews, Thurmond, W. Va.; C. M. Arnold, Standard, W. Va.; Morrell N. Masten, Coketon, W. Va.; J. O. Hicks, Huntington, W. Va.; John E. Robertson, Huntington, W. Va.; Alexander H. Moore, Bramwell, W. Va.; James E. Hereford, Rankin, Pa.; U. S. G. Jones, Petersburg, Va.; William G. Price, Salisbury, N. C.; J. Q. A. Webb, Norfolk, Va. Eight applicants failed to pass a satisfactory examination. On motion of Dr. Robins the following resolution was adopted: Resolved, That all applicants for license to practice medicine in this State be required to file with the Secretary their certificate of high school graduation, or evidence of its equivalent, and that the Secretary be instructed to investigate doubtful cases, asking the aid, when necessary, of the Committee on Classification and Grades of the West Virginia University. Dr. Bradenbury offered the following, which was adopted: Resolved, That applicants seeking a license under reciprocity regulations from States requiring one or more years actual practice shall not be admitted to licensure unless they shall have had a similar period of practice in the State in which they hold a license. (At a special meeting of the Board at Charleston on January 16th, 1914, the above was amended so as to require all applicants to show that they have been engaged in actual practice in the states from which they come for the year preceding the filing of their applications.) The following regulations for the inspection of hotels, boarding houses, etc., were adopted: Hotels, Restaurants and Lunch Counters to Fly Extermination Sought-State Board of Health Issues Rules to Protect Public Health. Regulation 1. All doors, windows, back porches where same exist, air passages or openings in hotels and restaurants, lunch. counters or lunch wagons in this state shall be properly screened from the first day of April to the fifteenth day of November in each year. Regulation 2. All cooked, or prepared food on display shall be kept covered at all times by glass or 16 mesh screen covers, or kept in glass or finely screened cases to prevent contamination by handling or flies. Regulation 3. All garbage or other matter discarded from kitchens shall be kept in metallic garbage cans which shall be kept clean and always effectively covered to prevent flies from getting in the cans. Regulation 4. It shall be the duty of every person or persons conducting a hotel, restaurant, eating house or lunch wagon to keep the premises clean and sanitary and all floors to be scrubbed sufficiently clean to keep them in a sanitary condition, and they shall exterminate all ants, roaches, and other insects. They shall also keep all food where rats and mice cannot get to it. Regulation 5. All water closets shall be disinfected each week or more frequently if necessary to prevent obnoxious odors or effluvia arising therefrom. A simple and inexpensive solution can be prepared by adding one pound of copperas to one gallon of water, to be used freely in sinks, water closets and vaults. Regulation 6. Serving tables, trucks, trays, boxes, buckets, knives, saws, cleavers and all other utensils and machinery used in handling, moving, cutting, chopping, mixing or serving food are required to be sterilized through cleansing daily by boiling water or steam, and the clothing and hands of cooks, stewards and waiters must be kept clean and sanitary. Regulation 7. No person, firm or corporation engaged in conducting a hotel or restaurant shall knowingly have in his employ any person who has an infectious, contagious or communicable disease. The Committee on Reportable Diseases made a report which, revised by the President and Secretary, is as follows: We recommend that the following diseases be classed as reportable, those in Italics being also quarantinable, viz.: Anthrax, cerebrospinal meningitis (epidemic), chicken pox, Cholera (Asiatic) diphtheria, croup (membranous), erysipelas, glanders, hookworm disease, hydrophobia, leprosy, measels, German measles, pellagra, bubonic plague, poliomyelitis, scarlet fever (scarlatina, scarlet rash), smallpox, trachoma, tuberculosis (specify form), typhoid fever, whooping cough, yellow fever." At the special January meeting of the Board a special committee composed of Drs. Barbee, Brandebury and Rusmisell was appointed to report at the next regular meeting regulations for supplying the State with vaccine virus and other vaccines as provided in the amended health laws. The Secretary presented the following rule as to the common drinking cup, which was adopted: "Common carriers, hotels, boarding houses, restaurants, public buildings, schools, clubs, theaters, factories, stores and all other places where people eat and drink or congregate shall not provide any drinking cup, glasses, or other vessels for common use; Provided, that this regulation shall not be held to preclude the use of drinking cups, glasses or other vessels which are thoroughly cleansed in boiling water after use by each individual, nor shall it be held to preclude the use of sanitary devices for common use, such as the bubbling fountain for schools and cups made of paper or other material intended for individual use." A license to practice was given to Dr. A. O. Reynolds, now of Huntington, under the reciprocity regulations of the Board. Report of Laboratory Examinations From Water-Bacteriological Examinations-Total Number 23. No. 1. Barger Springs, W. Va.; spring water; water sample reported safe. No. 2. No. 3. No. 4. No. 5. No. 6. No. 7. No. 8. No. 10. No. 11. No. 12. No. 13. No. 15. No. 16. No. 17. No. 19. Moundsville, W. Va.; well water; water sample reported safe. Pennsylvania Lines West of Pittsburgh; water sample taken from Wheeling, W. Va.; water sample reported safe. St. Marys, W. Va.; well water; water sample reported unsafe. St. Marys, W. Va.; well water; water sample reported safe. St. Marys, W. Va.; well water; water sample reported Rowlesburg, W. Va.; water sample reported safe. Ethel, W. Va.; water sample reported safe. Holden, W. Va.; deep well; bottle broken when re- Charleston, W. Va.; water sample reported unsafe. Metz, W. Va.; well water; water sample reported un- Metz, W. Va.; Rowand's well; water sample reported unsafe. East Bank, W. Va.; Blacksburg well; water sample reported safe. East Bank, W. Va.; mine well; water sample reported unsafe. No. 20. East Bank, W. Va.; mine well; water sample reported unsafe. No. 21. No. 23. Lima, W. Va.; water sample reported unsafe. Lima, W. Va.; well water; water sample reported safe. No. 1. Milk sample; Metz, W. Va.; No B. coli, no tubercle bacilli. No. 2. Milk sample; Morgantown, W. Va.; No. B. coli, no tubercle bacilli. Sputum Examinations-Total Number 13. Twelve negative, one positive. Widal Tests for Typhoid Fever-Total Number 2. One positive for typhoid. Examination for Rabies. One dog's brain received in a decomposed condition; no examination. Diphtheria cultures, one negative. Urinalyses, six examinations made. Examination of tumors, four specimens examined. Miscellaneous, four samples examined. CHECK ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF MENTAL There are about fifty thousand persons of unsound mind in Hungary at the present day. Dr. Decsi has drawn attention to the fact that more than one-third of this insanity is caused by drink and venereal diseases. He suggests the following rules. for checking the development of mental de generation at the present day: 1. Prevention of those who have been insane once from marrying. It may be stated as a certainty that many women who have had one attack of lunacy would have remained free from a second attack had they not married. 2. Immediate legislation for compulsory confinement of habitual drunkards, who are the greatest propagators of lunatics and degenerates, and who should therefore be legally restrained from inflicting their own vice on other human beings. 3. Prohibition of marriage by habitual drunkards. 4. Care in the administration of alcohol to women, as this very often makes the offspring a drunkard or a lunatic. 5. General reformation of the marriage system, with certain health requirements. 6. Prohibition of marriage when hereditary insanity exists on both sides. 7. Prohibition of marriage by paralytics, epileptics, consumptives and those affected with cancer. 8. Restriction of the liquor trade. 9. The establishment of intermediate houses, so to speak, where those suffering from acute but curable insanity could be placed instead of being incarcerated in lunatic asylums.-Journal American Medi |