Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 108, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 May 1911 — Churches and Tuberculosis. [ARTICLE]

Churches and Tuberculosis.

Statistics showing how serious a problem tuberculosis is to the ordinary church congregation have been issued by the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis. From reports received from over 726 churches, with a membership of over 312,000 communicants of twenty denominations, and from 208 cities and towns in 12 states in various parts of the country, out of nearly 7,000 deaths in 1910, over 700 or 10 per cent., were caused by tuberculosis. This means 2.24 deaths for every thousand members or communicants. While the percentage of deaths from tuberculosis compared with other diseases is not higher in the churches, according to these figures, than in the country at large, the tuberculosis death rate, as shown by the church returns, is higher per thousand communicants than that for the general population in the registration area of the United States, which the census bureau gave as 1.67 in 1909.