Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 104, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 May 1918 — SOME OLD HEALTH FALLACIES [ARTICLE]

SOME OLD HEALTH FALLACIES

Surgeon Blames Women, Especially Mothers, for Keeping Infectious Diseases Going the Rounds. “If I were asked who keep infectious disease going my reply would be most emphatically women in general, but chiefly the mothers.” This hard saying came from a noted English surgeon who was addressing a gathering of women. The new idea of public health was his topic. Continuing, he "said: “One is horrified to observe the profound ignorance that prevails even among clever and cultivated people as regards the true nature and treatment of disease. For instance, you will find numerous persons of your acquaintance who still believe that rubbing the eyelids with a gold wedding ring will cure a stye, and that piercing the ears strengthens the vision; that lunatics are affected by the phases of the moon; that consumption is hereditary; that the application of red flannel (it must be red) cures sore throat, and that a raw beefsteak Is good for a black eye; that pricks from rusty nails cause lockjaw, and that the swallowing of grape stones sets up appendicitis, finally, that measles and other children’s diseases are inevitable and that the sooner one Is through with them* the better, and that, on that account, It Is both useless and unnecessary to enfleavor to segregate the other children when once a case occurs In a house.”