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Friday, April 12, 2019

Public Health Dollars Well Spent in North Carolina, April 12, 1919

From the editorial page of The Daily Times, Wilson, N.C., April 12, 1919, John D. Gold, Editor. The United States Surgeon-General from 1912 to 1920 was Dr. Rupert Blue, who was born in Richmond County, N.C., and raised in South Carolina.

Intensive Health Work

Surgeon-General Blue of the United States Public Health Service insists that the work and special vigilance of the local health authorities are of primary importance to the health of the nation. It is not what the state or federal governments do, but what each individual locality does that counts.

The Surgeon-General also lays great stress and puts a special significance on the achievements in the field of preventive medicine and points to the results obtained during the world war. Anyone familiar with the history of other wars must realize that hundreds of lives have been saved as a result of the excellent work in sanitation and preventive medicine, yet, apparently, if we judge by current reports, these self-sacrificing scientists obtain less credit for their Herculean work than those who succeeded in efficient means for material warfare. What can be done among soldiers in the unfavorable environment of war can certainly be done among the civilian population under the more favorable conditions of peace.

Every dollar expended by local authorities for public health work is the best investment from whatever point considered that can be made.

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From The Franklin Times, Louisburg, N.C., Friday, April 11, 1919

By Dr. J.E. Malone, Health Officer

Our City Fathers recently asked us to give them money to pave the streets. Now we ask them to give us their influence and material aid to pave the way to good and better health for our town. We want them to pass an ordinance to require every householder to either connect their homes with the city sewerage or put in Sanitary Privies.

These Sanitary Privies can cheaply be placed into every home—proof against the visits of flies that would carry and spread the germs of contagion from human excrement and filth. With clean premises, Sanitary Privies, and anti-typhoid injections, our people would be immune from Typhoid Fever and many other Spring and Summer diseases. When a candidate for a town office asks you for their vote, ask him how he stands in respect to public health. Now is the time to prevent Spring and Summer disease. Don’t let the flies get the start on us—clean up. Screens up. Put in Sanitary Privies and let’s have a healthy year. Don’t forget to get your anti-typhoid treatment.

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From the Dunn Dispatch, April 10, 1919

After-Effects of Influenza. . . the Majority of Persons Who Suffered from Influenza Have Been Left With Problems

Influenza was the direct cause of 9,686 deaths in North Carolina during October, November and December, 1918, according to the reports rece4ived by the State Board of Health, and up to March, 1919, the number of deaths from the disease exceeded 100,000. This loss of life, together with the suffering and financial cost, is a burden that will take the State many years to overcome. The most serious results of the epidemic, in the opinion of the State Board of Health, is the after-effects, which will cripple a majority of the men and women who suffered from the disease. Injuries to either the lungs, the kidneys or the heart are a common result of influenza and if persons having these defects are not treated early the defects will become more pronounced and lead to handicaps and, in a great many instances, to invalidism and early death.

The American Public Health Association, through Dr. Lee K. Frankel, its president, is urging every person who had influenza to go to a physician and be thoroughly examined in order to find out if any injury was caused to the vital organs by the disease. If any defects are found in it, of course, it is highly important to have these treated before they become serious or permanent. In this connection it is interesting to know that there are 10 counties in North Carolina which are co-operating with the State Board of Health in providing for these examinations for their citizens. These are Davidson, Forsyth, Lenoir, Nash, Northampton, Pitt, Robeson, Rowan and Wilson. Citizens of these counties should ask their health officer for an appointment for a free examination.

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From the Dunn Dispatch, April 10, 1919

Sleeping Sickness Here Unlike That Found in Africa

With the encroachment of what is, through error, called “sleeping sickness” in the South, many people are becoming alarmed, connecting the American disease with the fatal malady in Africa. Dr. D.L. Munpower, a medical missionary of the M.E. Church, South, to Africa, now in America on furlough, stated recently that there is no connection whatever between the two forms of sleeping sickness.

“In Africa sleeping sickness is caused by the bite of a fly, and the results are often fatal. At first the victim appears to have malaria, and within four or five months they are unable to shake off the intense drowsiness which gradually settles upon them for longer and longer periods of time. If the disease cannot be broken up before this period, there is little hope though often the victim lingers for three or four years. It comes on slowly and lasts a long time.

“The disease called sleeping sickness in America is not alarming, except that it is new and somewhat strange. But it only lasts a few weeks, the patient nearly always recovers and, often, is stronger and better for the experience. It appears to be rather a form of nervous prostration caused by great physical exhaustion or overstrained nerves. But the two sleeping sicknesses are not alike in any of their symptoms; and if Americans had seen as many cases of the real thing as I have in Africa, they would not worry at all over the disease in their own country.”





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