p. 7 | Sickness Abroad in the Land

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 20, 1916

Sickness Abroad in the Land

PELLAGRA has become such a menace in the South that Secretary McAdoo asked Congress, January 4, for a rush appropriation of $100,000 for studies and demonstration work in rural sanitation, with a particular view of checking that disease. We quote from the Washington Post of January 5, a paragraph from the report of the Public Health Service, which he submitted:—

Increased demonstrations are urgently required to prevent pellagra from becoming a veritable scourge in many rural communities. In Mississippi alone there were 10,954 cases and 1,024 deaths from pellagra last year, and in certain other States it has exceeded tuberculosis as a cause of death. It is estimated that there have been approximately 75,000 cases of pellagra throughout the country this past year, with more than 7,500 deaths.

The same paper on another page tells of another grave scourge:—

The most serious epidemic of influenza ever known to exist in this country was disclosed in reports laid before Surgeon-General Blue, of the Public Health Service, yesterday. The reports, which were from Public Health Service officers, show that the disease is spreading at an alarming rate, and is causing many deaths. Of the larger cities, influenza is widely prevalent in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, Cleveland, and Detroit, the two latter cities having probably 100,000 cases.

The federal authorities explain that they are practically helpless to aid in stemming the tide of the epidemic. It must be dealt with by local authorities, who in turn are relying on cooperation from the public. In the hope that publicity will stimulate this cooperation, Surgeon-General Blue has called for reports from all parts of the country.

The hope that medical science can wholly eliminate these epidemics is based on a false foundation. The vitality of the race is evidently lessening, and mankind is becoming subject to disease, some forms of which have only been known in the last few years. Let us not rest our hope in man, but on the prophecies of the Scriptures which show the nearness of the second coming of Christ, which will bring an end to the reign of sin and sorrow, of sickness and death.