Dr. E. S. Moss, Williamsburg. Dr. W. C. Simmons, Smiths Grove. Auditor's Report for 1905. Contrast in Appropriations in Kentucky for Other Purposes and for the Public Health Work. General Summary by the Secretary. Embraced in this volume will be found an outline of the public health work done in the State from April 1, 1905, to April 1, 1907. It will include the health and medical laws and some of the more important court decisions, construing and defining them; the rules and regulations prepared and adopted by this Board under authority of law, for the information and guidance of health officials, physicians and the people, and recommended for adoption by local boards of health; the proceedings of the Board at regular and called meetings; its preventive disease circulars, and reports from health officers of counties and municipalities, in so far as these could be obtained. Small Pox. Within this period small pox, which has so engrossed the time and energies of the health officials, so occupied the attention of the people, and proven so expensive to counties and municipalities for ten years, has been practically eliminated from the sick and mortality tables. This was made possible largely through the self-sacrificing, though often misunderstood and cruelly misrepresented, labors of members of the local boards of health, 795 of whom served year after year absolutely without any, and most of the other fifty with only nominal, compensation. The health officials and medical profession of Kentucky know, and knew and insisted ten years ago, that most of the hundreds of thousands of dollars expended by counties and municipalities in combating small pox was a useless waste. Vaccination. Vaccination properly and thoroughly done is an absolute preventive of this disease, and is devoid of danger. The average expense of a successful vaccination is forty cents. The average expense of caring for a case of small pox is forty dollars. At the outset of this epidemic ten years ago we found that, in spite of repeated warnings and appeals, less than 30%, and in many counties less than 5%, of the people had protected themselves by vaccination. Even then, with the intelligent co-operation of the county and city fiscal officials and people, every man, woman and child in the State could have been made immune, and the existence of the disease made impossible, for one-tenth of what the epidemic cost, to say nothing of the suffering and loss of life, and the interference with business and travel, which would have been entirely prevented. Increasing Opposition. Instead of cooperation and encouragement in the performance of duties, difficult and unpleasant enough at best, health officials and physicians, most of whom were serving gratuitously, or for merely nominal compensation, men of the highest character and standing, were met by suspicion and derision from fiscal officials and open denunciation, often by threats of personal violence, from people of intelligence upon other subjects, when they asked for allowances for housing, food, clothing, nursing, guards, medicines and such necessaries for poor persons afflicted with this most loathsome of maladies, matters in which they had only the humanitarian and public interest and responsibility which is inseparable from their calling. The Domestic Pestilences. With small pox practically out of the way it became possible for the health officials to give greater attention to the far more important domestic pestilences, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, diphtheria, the diarrheal diseases of infancy and childhood, scarlet fever, dysentery and similar practically preventable diseases, which we have with us almost every day in every year. A disease should be important to a people just in proportion as it makes them sick, kills them. costs money for treatment, and causes loss of time and life. Measured by this standard these domestic pestilences, every day afflictions of poor and rich, alike, take the front rank. The Useless Waste of Life. In the lost report of this Board it was shown that in the preceding two years, which experience has proven were about average ones, we had annually 11,979 cases and 6,438 deaths from tuberculosis; 22,512 cases and 1,683 deaths from typhoid fever; 16,317 cases of sickness and 1,835 deaths from the diarrheal diseases of infancy and childhood; 5,181 cases and 1,068 deaths from diphtheria; 22,383 cases and 933 deaths from dysentery and diarrhea in adults, and 1,360 cases and 59 deaths from scarlet fever. This gives a total of 173,070 cases and 24,828 deaths in one year, which is believed to be fairly typical of what is occurring every year, from these six forms of preventable disease. The Cost to the People. The estimate of our reporters, a little more than $330 for the medical care, drugs, nursing and loss of time for each case, certainly very conservative, would indicate that the total tax upon our people each year on account of these discases is $5,802,139. As these diseases could and should have been prevented we insist that this was not only as much a tax as that paid into the municipal, county and state treasuries, but that it was an unnecessary waste which brought ERRATA. In first line of third paragraph on this page read "last" in place of "lost." In first line of fourth paragraph on this page read "$33" in place of "$330." |