14 



INTRODUCTION 



statistics of the United States possess sufficient accuracy to be of any 

 value, the death-rate in the registered area was 19.8; in 1912 it was 

 13.9 a decrease of 30 per cent. During the same time the mortality 

 from typhoid fever has decreased 50 per cent. ; that from scarlet fever 

 89 per cent. ; that from diphtheria 84 per cent. ; that from tuberculosis 

 54 per cent. Hoffman states that had the death-rate for tuberculosis 

 in 1901 continued, there would have been 200,000 more deaths from 

 this cause from that date to" 1911 than actually did occur, so that the 

 actual saving of lives from death by tuberculosis accomplished in that 

 decennium averaged 20,000 a year. Preventive medicine measures its 

 successes by the number of lives saved, and 20,000 a year preserved 

 from death from one disease is no small triumph. In the last century 

 the average of human life has been increased fifteen years and this 

 increase could be duplicated in the next twenty years if the facts we 

 now possess were effectively employed. Hoffman further states that 

 the addition to the material wealth of this country secured by the 

 reduction of deaths from tuberculosis within ten years amounts approx- 

 imately to 6,200,000 years of human life, covering its most productive 

 period. Medicine discovered the facts which have made this great 

 work possible and has directed their application. With evidence of 

 this kind before them, will our lawmakers listen to those who demand 

 recognition as practitioners of medicine without proper qualifications ? 

 The following figures give the death-rates from all causes and 

 from each of certain infectious diseases in the registered area of the 

 United States since the census of the year of 1879-80 : 



