EDUCATION 



1945 



EDUCATION 



ad 



there is relatively little danger of this disease 

 ever appearing in adult life. 



The real problem of stamping out tubercu- 

 losis, thait great plague which sweeps away 

 about one out of every ten people the world 

 over, consists in the prevention of infection 

 with the germ of this disease during the years 

 of childhood. This means a thorough tinder- 

 standing of those conditions necessary to a 

 healthful life in childhood. It includes such 

 things as clean milk, from properly-tested 

 cows; a properly-adjusted diet for older chil- 

 dren; an abundance of fresh outside air, night 

 and day; proper clothing; the avoidance of 

 personal contact with people sick with tuber- 

 culosis ; early attention to adenoids and dis- 

 eased tonsils ; the proper care of the first teeth ; 

 and a few other of the essentials most often 

 neglected. 



The discovery and proper treatment of dis- 

 eased tonsils in childhood go far toward the 

 prevention of rheumatism and even one form 

 of heart disease in adults. The prevention of 

 ordinary colds in children will often save the 



ult from many serious disorders, such as 

 catarrh, deafness, rheumatism and a general 

 low state of resistance to many of the germ 

 diseases. It is even probable that serious kid- 

 ney disease and some diseases of the circulation 

 which carry off so many people in middle life, 

 just when they have become the most useful to 

 the world, are often due directly or indirectly 

 to some of the preventable disorders of child 

 life. 



Those diseases usually called "children's dis- 

 eases," such as scarlet fever, measles, whooping 

 cough and similar ones, contrary to the usual 

 opinion of people, do greater harm in childhood 

 than the same diseases would in adult life. 

 They are all preventable. 



Modern investigators in child study show us 

 that a child's mental character is largely formed 

 before he is seven years old, and perhaps even 

 considerably younger than this age. Now, in 

 the same way, modern investigators of child 

 health are showing us that the child's physical 

 character is also largely formed at this same 

 early age. 



Of course it is true that unfortunate mental 

 traits are sometimes modified or entirely 

 changed after the age of childhood, and it is 

 equally true that weak physical conditions are 

 sometimes offset by later influences, but this 

 does not alter the rule, that in most important 

 respects, the mental and physical nature of an 

 individual is largely fixed at an early age in 



childhood. The old wise saying that "the child 

 is father to the man" is proving to have a much 

 greater significance than we originally sup- 

 posed. 



If these things are true, it is clear that 

 young people as well as parents and teachers 

 should understand their significance, for only 

 by such knowledge can a safe, happy and 

 thoroughly satisfactory life be expected. There 

 is no doubt at all that if this modern health 

 knowledge were general and put into practical 

 effect, human life would be lengthened on the 

 average at least twenty-five years. 



The length of human life in highly civilized 

 countries has already been greatly increased 

 during the last one or two centuries, largely 

 through decreasing infant mortality. Three 

 hundred years ago the average length of life 

 in Europe was only half of what it is to-day. 

 In India, on the contrary, it has remained sta- 

 tionary. 



Now the time has come to make use of our 

 greatly enlarged knowledge of the human body 

 and what affects it, to increase the length of 

 life after middle age, as well as in infancy and 

 childhood. Middle age (from 45 to 55) is a 

 period of danger to the average person. This 

 is the time when many incurable diseases seem 

 suddenly to develop. With a wiser care of 

 the child many of these disorders of middle life 

 would never develop, for in childhood we now 

 know that the seeds of later trouble are often 

 planted". 



Nature gives us many danger signals if wo 

 were but wise enough to recognize them. 

 Many of these signals physicians have come to 

 see and understand well. Most of them should 

 be as easily read by other people as they are 

 by the trained doctor, for there is no iny-t. i\ 

 about them, and no very unusual powers of 

 observation are ordinarily required. Ix-t u< 

 consider a few of the most important nf tlu-c 

 health danger signals. 



Adenoids. A mouth-breathing child nearly 

 always has an obstruction in the back of his 

 nose called adenoids. He breathes with his 

 mouth open for the simple reason that he can- 

 not breathe any other way. The open mouth 

 is nature's danger signal. Such children speak 

 with a nasal voice, a voice of dull, dead qual- 

 ity, possessing no resonance. They often snore 

 at night; usually they have many colds; ear- 

 ache and deafness are very common; night- 

 mares are often caused by this obstruction to 

 breathing; nearly all cases of crooked, promi- 

 nent upper teeth are produced by adenoid.-?; 



