SYMPOSIUM ON SCIENCE AND RECONSTRUCTION 45 



Estimating the cost of human life, the loss of time in gain- 

 ful occupations, medical and nursing care and the expense 

 of burial, it is found that eleven communicable diseases 

 during the year ending July 1. lOlS, cost the peo- 

 ple of" Illinois approximately §155,000,000, or §24.67 for 

 every man, woman and child in the state. The per capita 

 cost to the various counties ranged from $4.72 in Stark 

 County to §124.16 in Kendall. In one county this loss 

 equalled 37.61 per cent of the valuation of the total 

 assessed wealth. 



Of this gigantic sum |1 15,000,000 was due to tubercu- 

 losis ; §.30,010.000 to pneumonia ; §3,007,000 to typhoid 

 fever; §2.660.000 to malaria; §1,157.000 to diphtheria: 

 §735,000, to whooping cough : §675.000 to smallpox ; §461,- 

 600 to poliomyelitis : §456^)00 to measles ; §426.000 to epi- 

 demic meningitis; §388,300 to scarlet fever. It will be 

 borne in mind that these figures are for the year ending 

 last July and do not include the months of the ei^idemic of 

 influenza. 



The experiences of the war, in handling hundreds of 

 thousands of men, closely crowded together, with typhoid 

 fever, smallpox, and malaria absolutely eliminated, sug- 

 gests a definite and certain saving of great magnitude 

 which can be brought about in Illinois by relatively simple 

 means now available to us. Greater savings in dollars 

 and cents, but not so easily demonstrated, may be made 

 through intelligent attack on the other communicable dis- 

 eases. 



For successfully meeting the problems of disease pre- 

 vention and health promotion whose importance the expe- 

 riences of the past two years liave revealed so clearly, the 

 war has provided a personal and a public sentiment which 

 will be tremendously elf ective if properly utilized. A large 

 number of pliysicians have gone into military service 

 from every section of the nation. Some of these men have 

 been assigned to sanitary service in the army and have re- 

 ceived excellent intensive training. All of them, regard- 

 less of their branch of service, have had impressed upon 

 them the paramount importance of maintaining the men 

 about them in the highest degree of health and efficiency. 

 In the army they have seen flagrant violations of health 

 regulations looked upon as nothing short of crime, and 

 they are all returning imbued with tlie necessity for a 



