Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 83, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 July 1906 — Consumption a Social Problem. [ARTICLE]

Consumption a Social Problem.

Writing of the campaign against con-snmpt-ron in the Jnne -Everybody's Magazine. Eugene Wood says that there is nothing particularly new in the medical or scientific side of the problem to report, pending the outcome of Von Behring’s ekpetimept with tuberctriosls. a substance separated from the growth of the tuberculosis bacillus, lie thinks it quite generally accepted now that people with light hair and blue eyes should not live out of doors where it is always bright and sunny, because they lack the pigmanetation to absorb the light rays, which become a source of irritation and fidgets. A cloudier flimate is better for blondes, and there is nothing dangerous in a damp climate: The statement is also made that "those who don't care for meat are very likely to die of tuberculosis." Referring to the effort of the consumption fighters to enlist the American Federation of Labor, Mr. Wood says that the disease is essentially a social problem, and he concludes that something is wrong with the way we live now. We kuow its causes and how to stop the spread, but, nevertheless, a great majority of the people in homes and factories are so living as to be unable to resist fubereulosis, and the social gulf between the people and the better classes is not wide enough to separate us from the disease that decimates. He believes that when this fact is squarely- faced the people will find a social remedy. • . .