Western Kansas world. [volume], October 28, 1911, Image 2

About Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current

Image provided by: Kansas State Historical Society; Topeka, KS

                
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111
VERY ten seconds, somewhere in
the world, a baby dies. A blinking
red light made this statement to
those who attended the convention
of the American Association for
tjje Study and Prevention ot In
fant Mortality at Baltimore, last
-November. In one corner ol the
room was an electric light, en
cased in a red bulb. Six times a
minute 7,640 times a day the
light went out; and, every time
the light faded from the bulb,
somewhere in the world, the light
faded from a mother's eyes. So fast do our chil
dren die.
Sometimes they die faster. They died faster
last summer. If babies kept diaries, last summer
would go down in the annals of the survivors
as the "black summer of 1910." In the single
city of New York, 873 died in a single week.
Every little poor street had its little white hearse.
Worse still, durin gthe course of the summer,
8,000 children died that ought to have lived; that
Is to say, they died from preventable causes.
Children die from two kinds of causes; those
that are preventable and those that are not. This
Is news. Your grandmother and, possibly, your
mother believed that every child that died could
not have been saved. Everybody thought so.
Preventable causes of deaths were not recognized.
It was taken as a matter of course that women
should bear twice as many children as were re
quired to maintain the population, because half
of them were bound te die.
We still let half of the children die, but wo
knc better. We know they need not die. We
know they were born to live. We know that
they do not have a chance to live. We have even
exploded the old supposition that the children of
the physically weak must of necessity be physical
ly weak. We now know that the children of the
physically weak are born almost as strong aa
the child of the strongest.
Every intelligent physician knows this
statement to be true. However, let
some eminent physician stand for it.
Caleb W. Saleetoy. one of the most emi
nent physicians In England, is such an
an authority. Read what he says on the
subject in "Parenthood and Race Cul
ture": "Most of the babies born In the clums
are splendid little specimens of humanity so far
as physique Is concerned bearing no marks of
degeneration to correspond with the deterioration
of their parents. In a word, hereditory works
. . . so that each generation gets a fresh
start."
In another part of the same book. Dr. Saleeby
estimated that the number of children who are
born so weak that they have little chance for
life does not exceed ten per cent.; and he attri
buted the weakness of these to the effects of alco
hol and certain impolite diseases upon one or
both of their parents.
Having now some fundamental facts that meet
with general acceptance among the enlightened,
we may proceed to seek an answer to the ques
tion. "Why are children permitted to die from
preventable causes and what are those prevent
able causes?"
We need not go far. Millions of children that
are born strong enough to live under favorable
circumstances are killed by their mothers. The
rest that die from preventable causes are killed
by the community by you and by me, if we help
to keep tilings as they are, and by everybody
else who helps to keep things as they are.
We will first consider the mothers who kill
their children. Every mother kills or tend3 to
kill her children who does not take the trouble
to inform herself concerning the proper methods
of child-rearing. It Is not that such mothers
are lazy. It is not that they are indifferent to
their children's welfare. They are simply ig
norant. Some of them are steeped in ignorance.
Some of them are half-steeped. But they are all
ignorant. They don't know that flies, by carrying
the germs of diseases, kill more children than all
the elephants, tigers, lions, automobiles and street
cars in thp world. Therefore, flies are considered
mere inconveniences. They are' regarded as un
ornamental In the soup, but as not detrimental to
the health. Ttoey swarm in the kitchen, the
pantry and the olntng room, painstakingly deposit
ing their filrti upon every particle of food that the
family. Including the children, eat. Some of this
filth is not deadly; some of it is. But no such
Ignorant motfher ever connects in her mind the
going of her heky with the coming of the flies. -Nor
does aoy such ignorant mother have any
conception oT the care with which she should
feed, not onT feer baby, but her half-grown chil
dren. If she doesn't nurse her baby she doesn't
realize that any milk she is likely to find for
sale Is more Wfcery to be poison than food. Nor,
does she realise (hat such milk will "be precisely
as poisonous for her baby after it has been
weaned. Such mothers usually buy their milk
from the nearest grocery store. The number of
bacteria In nrilk. when it exceeds 500,000 to the
cubic centimeter, makes the milk unlit for use.
Yet. some analyses of New York store milk, the
other day. showed bacteria as high as 38,000.000.
What wonder that every summer is a "black sum
mer" for the "babies of New York's poor?
In many Qtbtr ways, the ignorant mother kills
her children with the food she gives them. Many
a baby six months old is nibbling crackers,
bananas and pickles, while putting in the rest of
Its time at an "aU-day sucker" or a stick of candy.
Mothers who want their children to live should
know that the premature giving of any kind of
solid food to a baby is exceedingly dangerous:
that after a cMld is weaned it should be given
olid food only In accordance with the instruc
tions of an Intelligent physician; that meat ana
fruit (except orange juice) are like so much
poison, even If they do not produce death as
quickly as strychnine would; and that all during
childhood, the food should be simple, with cereals,
milk and vegetables as a basis and a little meat
not ofiener than once a week.
But. as a child-killer, the community exceeds
in destructiveness even the ignorant mother. By
s this is meant that the community maintains con
ditions that sometimes prevent even Intelligent
persons from taking proper care of their children.
The community -maintains conditions that create
poverty and Blums. The community even main-
xcin jriii ni )Sm. j It 4
aw
EVER TAKE A MUSIC BATH?
tains conditions that foster Ignorance. What
chance has the poor mother anywhere in this
country to inform herself with regard to the rear
ing of children? What chance has the poor mother
In New York? She has no money with which
to pay a physician for consultation. le she went
to a physician paid by the city, she would hardly
know what to do with her children while she
was away. She might leave them at a day nursery,
it is true; but did you ever think how many more
day nurseries and how many more city physicians
we should have to have if every mother who
needs to know how to rear her children were to
adopt this plan? We should have to have thou
sands and tens of thousands more of each. And,
If the community were intelligent enough to de
mand such conveniences, It would be intelligent
enough not to need most of them. Therefore,
we who know enough not to need them are re
sponsible for the slaughter of the children of
those who won't. And, Is not that a pleasant
thought?
How can intelligence prevail against the neglect
of communities to keep their water supplies pure?
Almost every city claims to have pure water.
Almost every city Is a liar. So long as we have
typhoid fever, we shall know that we have not
pure water. The water supply of nearly every
city is bad part of the year. One city - drinks
the sewage of another. The contamination could
be prevented, of course, but it isn't. Detroit, for
instance, will have another outbreak of typhoid
fever next fall. Scores, If not hundreds will die.
and. the following autumn, there --wili be another
outbreak Careful parents, of course, can give
their children only boiled water to drink at home,
but they cannot be sure what their children
drink at school. They can only hope for the best
and be thankful if they get it.
The most deadly disease that threatens chil
dren this summer is infantile paralysis. In June,
reports came from the south that the disease had
broken out in several widely separated places.
Dr. Simon Flexner, director of the Rockefeller
Institute for Medical Research, says It does not
follow that the disease will again be epidemic -In
the east and the middle west, but he eautions"
physicians and parents to be on .the look-out.
Infantile paralysis Is caused by a living organ
ism so small that it readily passes through a
germ-filter of the finest porcelain. It is believed
that this germ enters and finds lodgment in the
nose, and that children whose noses are not clean
are most likely to become infected.
From experiments ' made upon monkeys at
Rockefeller Institute, it Is known that the average
period of incubation Is a little less than ten days;
that is to say. definite symptoms of the disease
appear ten days after the germ enters the sys
tem, though illness has sometimes followed in
four days. N
. The first symptoms of the disease appear to
vary somewhat with the Individual. Also, no
Individual has all of the symptoms. Restlessness
and irritability sometimes mark the approach.
At other times there is apathy. Also there may
be a low fever for a few daya.
Dr. William Palmer Lucas of the Harvard Medi
cal School, who Is one of the leading investigators
of the disease, offers this general advice:
"Headache, general or frontal, is not Infrequent
ly met with In children old enough to locate the
pain, and this Is often accompanied with rigidity
of the neck. If with any of these nervous mani
festations, there should be trouble In the upper
air passages, such as bronchitis or sore throat, sus
picion should be aroused."
But even if the dwtsease. early in its progress.
" be correctly diagnosed, the best physician cannot
stop It. Like scarlet fever, measles and all other
germ diseases, this ailment must run its course.
They Are aa Good for the Soul,
Holmes Says, as Water for
the Body.
One must be educated, no doubt, to
understand the more complex and dif
ficult kinds of musical composition. Go
to the concerts where yon know that
the music Is good, and that you ought
to like It whether you do or not. Take
a music bath once or twice a week for
a few seasons, and you will find that it
la to the soul what the water bath is
to the body. I wouldn't trouble myself
about the affectations of people who
go to this or that series of concerts
chiefly because It la fashionable. Some
of these people whom we think so
silly will perhaps find, sooner or later.
that they have a dormant faculty
which Is at last waking up, and that
they who came because others came.
and began by staring at the audience,
are listening to a newly found de
light. Everyone of us has a harp un
der the bodice or waistcoat, and if it
can only once ct properly strung and
tuned it win respond to all outside
harmonies. Oliver Wendell Holmes.
A physician can only put the patient in a co?1"
tion to weather the Btorm as well as possible.
But while little can be done after the disease
has developed, careful parents can do much to
prevent their children from taking the malady.
The children's noses can be kept clean. Dr. Flex
ner regards this as most Important. Also, certain
disinfectants, if used as a mouth and nose wasn
during the - summer danger period, are effective.
A one per cent, solution of hydrogen peroxide wili
kill the germ of Infantile paralysis. So will
plain menthol. Each of these statements Is made
upon the authority of Dr. Flexner.
Yet the germ that causes infatnile paralysis Is
more virulent than the germ of rabies. Dr. Flex
ner discovered that the paralysis germ could not
even be weakend by drying it for weeks over
caustic potash, nor by keeping it frozen for weeks.
But hydrogen peroxide and menthol kill It.
Dr. Flexner Is now and has been for some time
conducting experiments to learn whether flies
carry the germs and spread the disease. He has
already definitely learned that flies do carry the
germs, but he has not demonstrated tbat the
germs', when carried, get into the system and
produce the disease. '
Infantile paralysis came to this country rrom
o. j: ,1- PHnr tn ifln7 It had seldom occurred
ouauuiuaiio. -
here Since then It has been epidemic from the
Atlantic to the Pacific New York and Boston,
where so many immigrants gather, have suffered
most. Minnesota, to which so many Scandinavians
tiBTt The disease flourishes dur-
i ,.,! rinf cnmmcni It is sort of a sister
1 1 uu. J '
disease of cerebrospinal meningitis and, years
nmhshiT nftn mistaken for that disease.
A conspicuous point of " difference Is that the for
mer malady comes in late winter or early spring,
while infantile paralysis comes In summer. In
fantile paralysis is most likely to attack children
less than four years old, though adults are not
i e,. ottnfe- most likely makes the
sublect immune for life. Dr. Flexner"s experl-
mnnluva Indicate as much.
But, harking) back to the causes ot preventable
deaths of children, this much more may be said:
Mothers are too prone to-buy medicine from doc
tors and not enougn given to dujuis
from them. Mothers who do not know how to
thai, chiiriron should not wait until a
child is sick and then call the doctor to dose the
child. They should call the doctor when the
child Is well, and pay him his regulation fee for
' sitting down half an hour and instructing them
, r, f the child. Most mothers
need information more than their children need
medicine. Doctors, when called, often give harm
i iinn wnsn none- is needed, simply be
cause the public feels that it must have something
for its money. The puDiic is noi "
to know that it can spend Its money In no better
.i hv pertain information that tends
mworri h maintenance of health. Diarrhea, for
,hioh irtiin more babies, perhaps, than
any other single cause. Is solely a disturbance
of the digestive tract due to wrong reeding. Milk
containing thirty-seven million bacteria to the
...li r con n million will cause it.
cuuiu tr ii ijiik-iv"
Cow's milk not properly modified Is certain to
upset the stomachs of infants. A half-hoar with
a good physician wlU enable a mother to get in
formation that may prevent her child from sicken
ing and dying.
- mo th, romnoneiblUty for the
- nr children must largely rest
uiuauic " - -
with the few who. knowing how to take care of
their own. do not. for one reason or another, take
effective measures to pass on this knowledge to
others. A few men control every government
.t mimicinal These men. it they
UBLiuuai, D la -J 1
wanted to. could compel government to dissemi
nate the vast amount or raroraiuun .uui
.. ht, rj infant mortality. France moved
when her birth-rate became so low that she had
... whoi hllrlren become scarce, govero
w uiuo. ' - - -
menu are sometimes as careful of their health as
they at at other times ox tne neaiui m doss.
PIMPLES ON FACE 3 YEARS
"I was troubled with, acne for three
long years. My face was the only part
affected, but it caused great disfigure
ment, also suffering and loss of sleep.
At first there appeared . red, hard
pimples which later contained white
matter. I suffered a great deal caused
by the Itching. I was in a state of
perplexity when walking the streets
or anywhere before the public
T used pills and other remedies but
they failed completely. I thought of
giving up when nothing would help,
but something told me to try the Cuti
cura Soap and Ointment. I sent for
a Cuticura Booklet which I read care
fully. Then I bought some Cuticura
Soap and Ointment and by following
the directions I was relieved In a few
days. I used Cuticura Soap for wash
ing my face, and applied the Cuticura
Ointment morning and evening. This
treatment brought marvelous results
bo I continued with It for a few weeks
and was cured completely. I can
truthfully say that the Cuticura Rem
edies are not only all, but more than
they claim to be." (Signed) G. Bau-
mel, 1015 W. 20th Place, Chicago, I1L,
May 28, 1911. Although Cuticura
Soap and Ointment are sold by drug
gists and dealers everywhere, a sam
ple of each, with 32-pae book, will
be mailed free on application, to
Cuticura," Dept. 28 K, Boston.
Some Shakespeare Statistics. '
A Shakespearean enthusiast with a
turn for statistics has discovered that
the plays contain 106,007 lines and
814,780 words. "Hamlet" is the long
est play, with 3,930 lines, and the
Comedy of Errors" the shortest.
with 1,777 lines. Altogether the plays
contain 1,227 characters, of which 157
are females. The longest part is that
of Hamlet. The part with the longest
word In it is that of Costard in
"Love's Labor Lost," who tells Moth
that he is "not so long by the head as
honorlficabilitudinltatlbus."
Leading a Dog's Life.
"Your husband says he leads a
dog's life,". said one woman.
"Yes, it's very similar," answered
the other. "He comes in with muddy
feet, makes himself comfortable by
the fire and waits to be fed." Every
body's Magazine. -
4 Where ft Belonged.
"Where are you goias?"
"To fetch some water, sorr."
"What, in those disreputable trous
ers 7"
"No, sorr. In this 'ere pail." Lon
don Opinion.
BEAUTIFUL POST CARDS FREE
Send So stamp for At samples of say very choic
est Gold Bmbossed Birthday Flower and Motto
Post Oards; beautiful colors and loveliest designs.
Art Post Card Clnn, 131 Jackson SC. Tbpeka, Kssfiss
It takes an optimist to rejoice In
the fact that after a woman tires of
his kisses, he can eat all the onions
he wants.
WfonpTpr von have a TJain think of
Hamlins Wizard Oil. For Headache,
Toothache. Earache, Stomach ache, and
manv other nainful ailments there is noth
ing better. ..-' . -' -
' A woman thinks a man Is sensible
If he tells her that she is handsome.
Many a man's deficiency In dollars
la due to his deficiency in sense.
Relieves
Backache
Sloan's Iiiniment is a great
remedy for backache. It
penetrates and relieves
the pain instantly no rub
bing necessary just lay
it ou lightly.
Here's Proof.
T had mr back hart in the Boer War
and in san sranosoo two years ago a
was bit by a street car in the same piece.
I tried all kinds at aope witnout :
Tm weeks am I saw vour lini-
sscttt fa a drag store and got a bottle to
try. The first appucation caused instant
relief, and now except for a little aun
acsa. 1 am almost well.
FLETCHKJt NORMAN,
Whinter.CaHf.
SLOAM'S
iir-IIMEMT
is the best remedy for
rheumatism, neuralgia,
sore throat and sprains.
Miss E. Rim of Brooklyn, N.Y.,
writes : "Sloan's Liniment is the best
for rheumatism. I have used six bot
tles of it and it is grand."
Sold by all Dealers.
Price, 25c, SOa, and $ I .OCX
Sloan's
Book
EadLI
METALLIC HEELS
AND COUNTERS
Inaore Your Shoes I
Miners, Quarrymen, Farmers, and Outside
Workers
can doable the wear of their shoes by eettins; s
fitted with metallic heels. These heels are lighter
than leather, support the counters, save shoe money
by doubling wear. Sold by shoe dealers ready fitted,
or fitted to any shoe by your cobblftr. If your dcator
Isn't supplied, write as. Your inquiry brings a
booklet.
UNITED SHOE MACHINERY CO. - BOSTON. MASS.
Your Liver
Is Clogged Up
That Why You're Tired Out of Sorit
Have No Appetite
CARTER'S LITTLE
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will put you right .CARTER'S,
in a few days. y 1fITTLE
They do S i illVER
their duty.X V i-l I II PILLS.
Cure Con
stioation.
Biliousness, Indigestion and Sick Headache
SMALL FILL, SMALL DOSE. SMALL PRICE.
Genuine must bear Signature
Lady Agents Wanted
Part of yonr time F2.00 to f3-00 a day ; all of roar
time 85.00 to tlO.OOaday. Write for partienlara.
LLOYD MANUFACTURIN8 CD- Menominee, atioku
FOR ALL
EYE PAINS
E
it
aMED
FARMS
All
money kiunviI'
corn, . fat t
frolt and track city trays ererrtiiliie: eo-l.
oil .umI below ; good health, roada ana
school; prioetld toSflO ao acre. Reference any
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No Man is Stronger
Than His Stomach
A atrtmg man is strong all over. No man can be
strong who is suffering irom weak stomach with its '
coonqoent icdigestion, or from mm other diaeaao
of the stomach and ita associated organs, which im
pairs digestion and nutrition. For when the stomach
is weak or diwamerl there is a ioa of the nutrition
contained in food, which is the aoaree of all physical
strength. When m man ''doesn't feel just right,"
when he doesn't sleep well, has an uncomfortable
feeling in the stomach after eating, is languid, nerrous. Irritable and despond
est be is losing the nutrition needed to make strength.
SacM m mmm mhaald Dr. Pierce" m Coldem MetUcml
'DlMCorcrr- It carem afisensee of fate mtamacU mad other
rfaas ot dlieatlotM aas? matrltlom. It omricho thm blood,
iMTt&ormtom CAe Bwor, mtromitHonm tbo Mtidmmy. momriabem
tmm nerves, mod mo GIVES HEALTH SUgD STttEXCTH TO
THE WHOLE BOOT,
Yon can't afford to accept a secret nostrum na aobatitoto for this noaw
sdooholio medicine or ajsoww com men ion. not ma though the urgent dealer
may thereby make a little bigger profit. , Ingredients printed on wrapper.
i
C .
COLT DISTEMPER
wmrw le-i IT i Yha trtefe: mm flared, bums mil
attavbie, no matter- bow "exposed. kept from bftvlos xhm cLUv
by uiliitr 6t"OHNl LIQUU DL8TfcJPEK GU RK70 1 - oa
onarnm- or In feed. Arta on tha Blood a.Bd axntan. on-rnii -ur
all forma of dteteanper. Best remedy ever known for mmm in fotCL
f Tit dasei w dnLggtstP and lie i mi ilieli-n ni mini inimf pmkl by
t aajmtwkrxnrmn. Cut snows bow to pooltlo tfaroata. Oar fn
keen rsJBaly iJfciJsTTsriOw) twleyemra,
MttftGAk COe feaxlataaatliih I I H . COeaw, fee U. ft,.