54 THE LURE OF THE LAND 



luted with the excrement of man and beast. The milk 

 which forms so large a part of the food of the young 

 rarely comes from a tuberculin tested cow. There is 

 no competent inspection of the meat-food animals 

 slaughtered for home use. In fact the farmers of this 

 country have put too much thought on the barn, the pig 

 pen and the dairy. They have reserved none of them 

 for such puerile problems as home and barn sanitation. 

 "No wonder then that so few centenarians are found 

 among our rural people. At best the average length of 

 human life in the United States is only forty-four years 

 and the members of the farmers' families are not doing 

 much to make it longer. 



DISEASES THAT THRIVE IN THE COUNTRY. 



There are certain diseases which seem to be peculiarly 

 attracted to rural districts. 



Statistics as to the causes of the excessive mortality 

 in the country are not sufficiently reliable to draw any 

 general conclusions. There are some diseases on the 

 other hand which appear to be more frequent in the 

 city than in the country, but the extent of complete reg- 

 istration is not sufficiently general to warrant any 

 definite conclusions except from the states of Califor- 

 nia, Colorado, Connecticut, Indiana, Kentucky, Mary- 

 land, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota and Mis- 

 souri. For instance, organic diseases of the heart are 

 more common in some states in the city than in the 

 country. This is true of California and Colorado, 

 while in Connecticut organic diseases of the heart are 

 more common in rural districts. In Indiana they are 

 about the same. In Kentucky the organic disease of 

 the heart is more common in the city, both among the 

 white and the colored population. In Maryland the 



