WIPE OUT TUBERCULOSIS
OBJECTS OF A SOCIETY FORMED
LAST NIGHT.
Building and Endowing of a Tent
Colony and a Sanitarium
Among the Purposes
of Promoters.
Fresh Air, Fresh Milk and Fresh Eggs.
That's the motto of the Jackson County Society for the Relief and Prevention of Tuberculosis, organized last night. The leading men of the city -- doctors, ministers, priests, lawyers and officeholders -- attended the meeting and promised their assistance in putting the society in shape to do real work.
The programme of intentions outlined for the next few months is:
The building and endowing of a tent colony and a sanitarium near the city for the treatment of tuberculosis patients.
The employment of nurses to visit in the homes of consumptives and teach the people how to live properly when afflicted with the disease.
The enactment of laws by the city council to compel the reporting of all cases of tuberculosis, and to clean and disinfect all houses in which consumptives had lived or died.
The distribution of literature and the holding of public meetings to educate the people in healthy living -- fresh air, baths and wholesome food.
"Kansas City is twenty years behind Eastern cities in dealing with tuberculosis," said Dr. C. B. Irwin, one of the organizers of the society, last night. There is no fumigation, no reports of deaths from the disease, and practically no effort to check the spread of the plague. I know one house in this city from which there men have been carried out dead from consumption in the past five years. It's easy to know how the last two got it. As fast as one family moved out another moved in.
"Since in 1880 New York city began fumigating houses in which tuberculosis patient had died, began educating the people and commenced a systematic fight upon the disease, the death rate from it had fallen 50 per cent. The same is true of Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore.
"In the Western cities one death in every seven is from the white plague."
The directors of the society, chosen last night, are: Rev. Father W. J. Dalton, Dr. E. W. Schauffler, Judge H. L McCune, Mayor H. M. Beardsley, Frank P. Walsh, R. A. Long, Rev. Matt S. Hughes, Hugo Brecklein, Dr. St. Elmo Sauders, Congressman F. C. Ellis, Mrs. Robert Gillam, Ralph Swofford, Albert Bushnell, F. A. Faxon, George F. Damon and J. W. Frost.
The others are: Dr. R. O. Cross, president; Dr. C. B. Irwin, secretary, Albert Marty, treasurer; John T. Smith, Rev. Wallace M. Short, J. W. Frost and E. A. Krauthoff, vice presidents; chairman finance committee, Mrs. Kate E. Pierson; chairman soliciting committee, Mrs. E. T. Brigham; chairman legislative committee, J. V. C. Karnes, and publication committee, Dr. E. L. Stewart, chairman; Dr. E. L. Mathias and Clarance Dillon.
