He shows how much has been done by the popular recognition of cause and effect in checking tuberculosis, malaria and yellow fever, and urges a similar awakening in regard to insanity. At the close of 1908 there were 30,456 patients in the public and private inst.i.tutions for the insane in New York State, about one in 280 of the general population of the state, he says; and then gives the new admissions for that year as 5,301. Five thousand new lunatics a year is a good many.
Dr. Salmon then shows that of this number there were "664 cases of general paralysis (dependant on syphilis) and 638 cases of alcoholic psychoses (due to intemperance)," or _more than one-fourth of all first admissions due to these two preventable causes._ There is a further most interesting fact, that this general paralysis in men is nearly three times as great in cities as in the country, and in women, twice as great; while alcoholic psychosis in women is seven times as great in cities.
Most striking of all is Dr. Salmon"s showing that "_42 per cent. of all male admissions from cities were for general paralysis and the alcoholic psychoses._" As he justly remarks, "Where are "the nervous tension of the cities" and "the mad rush of modern life," of which we speak so glibly, compared with syphilis and drunkenness as the real dangers of city life?" But for these two causes the ratio of insanity would be greater in the country, where, as is well known, the largest percentage of women lunatics comes from the lonely farm house.
Further than this we are told that many other forms of lunacy are indirectly due to syphilis and alcoholism, through parental transmission.
Knowledge is power. Society is but just awakening to a conscious knowledge of itself, its pains and pleasures, and its powers. One man may not be strong enough to resist the influences which pull and push him into these large h.e.l.ls, but when society as a whole,--or even women as a half,--waken to a realization of all this needless suffering, this dreadful waste, then we can prevent it.
The gentlemen of France are distressed about the birthrate. It appears that the men of that country do not bear enough children to keep up the population as they desire. Therefore serious measures are proposed "to stimulate the birthrate." They are these:
Additional military service to be imposed on bachelors over twenty-nine.
Marriage to be made obligatory to gentlemen employed by the state, at the age of twenty-five, with supplementary salaries and pension allowances for more than three children.
The law requiring equal distribution of estates among children to be repealed. The dislike of Frenchmen to dividing their property is a frequent cause of restricted families, we are told.
We trust that the gentlemen of France, spurred and encouraged by these incentives, will now produce more children than they have hitherto.
The New York _Times_, of Friday, June 24, gives an editorial to this news from France,--and no wonder. But it is perfectly serious in its treatment, and offers no criticism of the measures proposed. The writer has apparently small know]edge of biology, for he expresses astonishment that the miserably poor "increase prodigiously" in Russia and elsewhere.
"Who shall solve these mysteries or dogmatize upon them?" he says, and speculates further, in a vaguely awe-stricken manner, on the subject, quoting from the vigorous Mr. Roosevelt and the gloomy Dr. Koch.
Do any of our readers, belonging to the negligible side of this race problem see anything to smile at? Let us parallel it:
There is dismay in the poultry yard over a grave falling off in the supply of eggs. A convocation of roosters is called to discuss it, and to take measures to remedy the condition. They propose (a) To make all roosters over six months old do extra scratching for food. (b) To enforce matrimony--or its gallinaceous equivalent--on all roosters employed by the flock. (c) To alter the custom of dividing the worms equally among the chicks.
The simile is strained, we admit: try to apply it to some other case, as a shortage in the milk supply--considered by a convocation of bulls.
That seems rather absurd too. Can not some one suggest a parallel which could be taken as seriously as the Times takes this effort on the part of Frenchmen?
People in general, peaceably minding their own business, do not give much thought to their subtler enemies. A burglar, creeping in through the window, we can see and scream at; but a Public Poisoner, a whole array of Public Poisoners, creeping through the Legislature, we do not notice.
In the interests of the common good we have our National Health League, working by means of the Owen Bill for a National Department of Health which shall safeguard the people from disease and contamination as the Bureau of Agriculture safeguards our cattle.
Against this measure, one of most needed social service, is rising an organized opposition called the "League for Medical Freedom." This a.s.sociation defends the free practice of healing by unorthodox methods, but its opposition to the Owen Bill is wholly ignorant, if not worse.
The Owen Bill, in urging a National Department of Health, does not seek to regulate the practice of medicine. Its work will be to maintain pure food, pure drugs, pure streams, and to study human health and maintain it as a.s.siduously as we now study the health of swine and steers.
This sudden opposition, using great sums of money to advertise in the newspapers, seems based on the big interests of the patent medicines and other profitable health destroyers and life takers.
Our women, within their capacity as mothers and guardians of the home, ought to inform themselves as to the work of the National Health League.
Write to the Committee of One Hundred, Drawer 45 New Haven, Conn.
How many of our readers know that superb magazine, _The Englishwoman?_*
As far as I have seen them it is by far the finest woman"s publication in the world. A big, handsome, dignified monthly; 120 pages in large clear type, a joy to the eye; and paper, a joy to the hand; the magazine is three-quarters of an inch thick to _The Century"s_ half inch, and weighs ten ounces to _The Century"s_ 18. This is not only because there are no pictures, but because of that specially light weight paper, so much more used in England than with us.
Thus pleasing to the eye and to the hand, it gives to the mind a clear, strong, varied presentation of the affairs of the world to-day as they specially affect women. Excellent writers and plenty of them furnish the material; it is good reading straight through.
My special satisfaction in this monthly is in its breadth of view. The need of the ballot is strongly emphasized, and due record is kept of the progress of the equal suffrage movement; but far more ground than that is covered. Studies are given of the previous position of women, of her place in different countries and cla.s.ses, of her connection with the other stirring questions of the day.
Reading this, we gather an increasing sense of the real world-issues of which the woman"s movement is not only in itself an interesting part, but one in the solution of which is shown to be that of many others.
People who shrink from "feminism" in its more intense and accentuated forms, will find here a more proportional treatment, enlightening and persuasive.
*"The Englishwoman." Published by Sidgwick & Jackson, 3 Adam St., Adelphi. London, W. C. England. Monthly, 1s. Yearly, 14s. 6d. post free.
_The Woman"s Journal,_* so long our best exponent of the equal rights movement in America, is now the official organ of the National American Women suffrage a.s.sociation.
This is as it should be. The a.s.sociation needs an organ, and _The Woman"s Journal_ has always needed and desired a wider support than the equal suffragists gave it.
*The Woman"s Journal. Sat.u.r.day weekly. $1.00 yearly, No. 585 Boylston St., Boston, Ma.s.s.
It is the earnest wish of _The Forerunner_ that every American "equal suffragist" take the _Woman"s Journal,_ and so keep in touch with the movement. It is now but _one dollar a year,_ which, for such a weekly, is more than reasonable.
It is also the earnest wish of The Forerunner that every American interested in the woman"s movement the world over, and its English status in particular, should take _The Englishwoman._ That costs fourteen shillings a year, and is worth it.
And who is to take _The Forerunner?_ Only those who like it and find it useful.
PERSONAL PROBLEMS
Problem 1st. A woman of thirty, single and intending so to remain, owning a tiny cottage in the woods near a large city; exhausted by ten years" overwork and having spent her savings on doctor"s bills, asks two questions:
(a) Why cannot she stay at home and enjoy it?
(b) Can one love a man too much? (There was a man, but he went away.)
To (a) the answer is: one cannot live at home, and earn one"s living without practicing some domestic industry. Of these two obvious and common ones are:
Take in washing:--not strong enough.
Take in sewing?--How about that?
A large city ought to furnish sewing and mending enough to keep one woman who owns a cottage. Five dollars a week ought to do it, including carfare.
Then comes the more various tasks; to make some one thing excellently well, and sell it: taking orders: making a little business of one"s own.