RESEARCH IN DEVELOPMENT OF HEALTH 375 



the past generation towards applying the laws of hygiene, as is shown 

 in the sanitation of our great cities, and especially in regard to the 

 question of water-supply. It is good, for example, that Glasgow goes to 

 Loch Katrine for her water-supply, Manchester to the English lakes, 

 and Liverpool to the Welsh hills. Each of these great cities carries for 

 many miles the pure distillate of the hills to its million of inhabitants. 

 It has cost much in pounds sterling, though not more than if each fam- 

 ily had a pump in its backyard. On the other hand, think of the disease 

 and suffering and death prevented, enteric fever almost gone where 

 thousands would have died of it, and tens of thousands been debilitated, 

 and these of the best of the citizens, for disease is no eliminator of the 

 unfit. Think of all this, and then say, Did it not pay these great cities 

 to bring the pure water from the lakes in the hills ? 



But why do these good cities content themselves to allow their little 

 children at a most susceptible age to be supplied still with milk which 

 contains the bacillus of tuberculosis in so large a percentage as five to 

 ten per cent. ? And why does the law of the land prevent these corpora- 

 tions from searching out tubercular cows in all the areas supplying them 

 with milk ? If it is part of the business of a municipality to see that 

 its citizens have a pure water-supply, why should it not also be allowed 

 to see that they have a clean milk supply? 



Long ago the power to make the lame to walk was regarded as a 

 divine gift. When is mankind going to awake to the fact that science 

 has placed this gift in its hands ? Much more than half of the lame and 

 spinally-deformed children in our midst are in that condition because 

 of infection of joints or spine with the bacillus of tuberculosis. By 

 open-air hospitals and open-air schools we seek and succeed in curing 

 a percentage of them, but how much better it would be if we took the 

 fundamental problem of tubercular infection in hand and prevented 

 them from becoming lame and deformed? 



There is at present on foot in England a great scheme to enable the 

 blind to read, and it deserves our support because it is our fault that 

 these people are blind. The sad fate of the man born blind appeals to 

 all kind hearts ; but men are not born blind, they become blind within 

 a week or two of birth because of an infectious disease contracted from 

 the mother at birth. Science knows and has taught the world how this 

 blindness can be quite prevented, and it is because of our faulty organi- 

 zation for attending to maternities amongst the poor that these people 

 are blind. By proper organization practically all blindness arising at 

 the time of birth can be prevented. Why is it not done? Thus our 

 modern science can make the blind to see and the lame to walk, but it is 

 so manacled by ancient ways and customs that it is left powerless, and 

 so there are these maimed and darkened lives of innocent people, and 

 they are left partially burdening the community which has only its 

 own folly to blame for the whole stupid position. 



