44 ILLINOIS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 



states, has greatly interested the average citizen. While 

 the influenza epidemic, sweeping away thousands of our 

 much needed troops came as a tragic lesson of the utter 

 futility of governmental endeavor in the face of the out- 

 break of disease. 



When the influenza epidemic was at its height, the pub- 

 lic press reflected the fear entertained by many high 

 officials, that communicable disease might spell defeat for 

 the allies, and, for the nonce, public health stood in its 

 correct position, — the paramount subject of the nation. 



While the influenza epidemic was responsible for twenty- 

 five thousand deaths in Illinois, and between five hundred 

 thousand and six hundred thousand in the nation, consti- 

 tuting perhaps the most serious scourge the country has 

 ever seen, it is not unlikely that tlie benefits which will 

 accrue from the tremendous arousing of public sentiment 

 through the epidemic will more than compensate for its 

 frightful cost in human life and human suffering. The 

 epidemic seems to have been, at least indirectly, a result of 

 the war. Its explosive invasion of many states having its 

 origin in the large concentration camps. The regulatory 

 measures in which the public readily acquiesced during the 

 epidemic have already borne material fruits. On account 

 of the medical school inspection required in communities 

 where schools remained open, the communicable disease of 

 childliood have been less prevalent in Illinois during the 

 past winter than at any time during the history of the 

 State Department of Public Health, and people have seen 

 the advantages and necessity for the expenditure of public 

 funds in the safe-guarding of community health as they 

 have never done before. 



This enforced concentration of public attention upon 

 matters of public health has had a natural tremendous in- 

 fluence in the more progressive communities of Illinois, 

 and, from studies recently made by the State Department 

 of Health, there is ample occasion for grave concern over 

 the problem of disease prevention in our cities and villages 

 and rural communities. 



Terms of dollars and cents are more readily intelligible 

 to most of us than terms of grief and sorrow and human 

 suffering, and the studies of the cost of preventable diseases 

 made by the Department are staggeringly convincing. 



