Casper Daily Tribune Newspaper, April 16, 1919, Page 14

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16, 1919 -12eelese-stecte te cte cto ctoctotewte teste ste te testetevteotectete Mote te te tote tote tote Moc® Sototete totes POMPE OHO te a0 to Se 450 Oe Ole Ot 4Se Ole Hee-eLe H5e 450 ALo-Ole aed eSo-ele eeo-aceace- se ete ioe soslosie-<lo-eio- ete sie-stestoatostestostos =| Is Medical Inspection of Schodl Children An Asset or a Liability to the Community, 8 and a Credit or a Disgrace to the Medical Profession? , 3 E Ls. .tgiy, LEE W. EDWARDS, M. D., Omaha, Nebraska In these days of demobilization our attention reverts to before-the-war community problems, and we hear considerable talk about the role of the medical profession in the re- construction period. Thousands of young doctors fresh from school who have been in army service, enjoying the prestige and authority which goes with the uniform, are being re- leased and I am not surprised to see that there is increased asitation for the adoption of medical inspection in the schools, and greatly increased numbers of public health doctors. The political type of doctor who is always to the fore through his public activity has even come out openly and said that the doctors should be allowed to continue to wear their uni- berdiovnn } os Me Mn Me cB oP eS 9%) e rrr 4 $+ #0 «fe ?. ‘4 | “| — forms, be paid by the state, and have certain districts assigned them, all persons in the district being compelled to consult the district physician, in the same way that soldiers have 4 | been compelled to submit themselves to the care of their particular medical officers, without question. The American people have willingly surrendered a considerable measure of < ; | _ their personal liberty as their contribution towards winning the war, but I do not believe ihey would countenance a permanent renunciation of their nights in favor of any profes- : ‘| sion, nor do I think it would be a good thing for the growth and development of the medical profession if they did so. For this reason I am opposed to all these paternalistic |% i$] schemes, but shall confine myself at this time t® the single question of medical inspection of school children. asd! ; $ h e3 r Medical inspection, as a theory, contemplates improving the health of the children, thus raising school efficiency, and minimizing the spread of contagion. The theory does not 4 | — work out that way in practice, however. a * There are many lessons of hygiene which have their proper place in the school. These are taught, however, as a part of the regular school course, by the teacher. The school $ «| doctor is supposed to seek and fight disease. A simple problem in arithmetic is sufficient to prove that the number of doctors employed could not give enough attention to each child » | to make the examination or attention of any real value. if only a superficial examination is to be made, the teacher who sees the children every day has a better chance to make it $ 4 + than has the school doctor. If a really scientific examination is to be made, the average school doctor is not qualified to make it. A correct diagnosis is not arrived at by looking at | __ the throat and taking the temperature—which is the usual thing when all the pupils of a room are marched by for inspection. Dr. Cabot, head of the Massachusetts General Hos- 4 7 + pital and one of the most eminent physicians in the country, several years ago made the astonishing statement, that, in spite of all the laboratory tests and scientific apparatus at . : $ their command, post mortems proved that in 1,000 cases about half the diagnosis were incorrect. What percentage do you suppose the snap-diagnosis of the school physicians « $1 ~~ weuld show? , $ A salaried position as a school or public health doctor appeals chiefly to two types—the young man just out of the medical school, who is anxious to gain experience and wants + to be paid for practicing on the public, and the older man who has been unable, in competition with other physicions, to establish a paying practice. In the name of American child- 4 4 3 hood, | protest against putting this type of doctors in command in our public schools. Let the tyros get their experience through hospital internships, and let the doctor who is too * |% T e incompetent to succeed in private practice go back to the farm—or whatever line he can qualify at. The science of medicine is not an exact science. Medical theories of cause and treatment are constantly changing. Oft times when a certain treatment has been discarded by the leaders of the profession, men who have opportunity to test new treatments on thousands of cases, it will just be gaining a foothold with the smalltown doctor. Many procedures in use by school doctors in various places have been repudiated in the medical magazines, yet the genetal public seldom sees these magazines and relies upon the wisdom of their local doctor when he advocates something which they suppose is new and good. What are some of the procedures popular with school doctors? First and foremost, that-old standby,—vaccination! Lately there has been added to the smallpox vaccination an immunization against typhoid fever, and during the recent scare the children in many cities have been vaccinated to prevent “Spanish Flu.” Are these measures of proven efficiency and are all doctors agreed upon their use? The public may think so, but this is not the case. Vaccination as practiced today is entirely different than the practice advocated | _ by Jenner, and there are many physicians who believe it a dangerous, filthy procedure. My own renunciation of vaccination came as a result of watching its effects on inmates of a « <»| Nebraska state institution where I was official physician. Early in 1916 as a result of wholesale vaccination of school children here in Omaha, there were 200 cases of infected arm, © | __ some with serious after results, and all because the efficient (>) public physician wrongly diagnosed a case of chickenpox as smallpox, and immediately showed his authority by a. ordering wholesale vaccination. , é How about typhoid immunization,—is that infallible, as the public is led to believe? The Journal of the American Medical Association, issue of Feb. 8, 1919, contains an article (p. 402) by three army medical officers describing an outbreak of typhoid fever among American troops in England, where 98 cases developed from a total of 248 men, with a mortality of 13.15 per cent. All these men had received typhoid and paratyphoid immunization within the past eleven months, some receiving as high as eight “shots.” I guote from their conclusions: “That severe typhoid may occur in vaccinated men is proven by this series of cases.” As to vaccination for “flu”—the Journal of the A. M. A. has condemned it editorially week after week, yet how many school doctors have announced a compulsory vaccination of all children in their schools, as a sure preventative for the “flu.” In the issue of Oct. 19th, The Journal says editorially “The evidence at hand affords no trustworthy basis for regarding prophylactic vaccination against influenza, as of value in preventing the spread of the disease, or of reducing its.severity.” And in an editorial the following week, the same Journal further says: “How slender the basis for this anti-influenzal vaccination when it is considered that the real nature of influenza is unknown.” Are we treating the chil- os fo-efo-aload KO e 2° Oo Me ro OO RO 4, RO oe, K? o4, ? 2< Ao eo Chem i= fo 6,8, 9, Soe Mee detetoctes® % O84 OF Fg SP oP PRN OU OU oesw ag 049 15 25 “OPN? GI area a te he a ee m 3. dven fairly when we place them into the hands of an official school doctor, to experiment on according to his personal whim, whether it is endorsed by ‘conservative medical author- $ «| ity ornot? Tuberculin, “606,” and serums and vaccins of all sorts have been repudiated as worthless or actively harmful by many eminent members of the medical proféssion, 2 many of whom were formerly advocates of their use, yet so long as the medical schools teach the use of serums and vaccines the new graduate will go out imbued with a desire 3 to try them on someone—preferably someone who can be-compelled to submit. I could go on and tell of cases where children. have been herded to clinics for the removal of tonsils and adenoids, on the recommendation of school doctors, where the con- " servative physician would have advised against surgical intervention. The best doctors of today use practically no drugs and are slow to advise surgery, especially when there is so much controversy between medical men as to the value of the tonsils in protecting the respiratory tract. : In private practice a physician must maintain his efficiency to hold his practice. The school doctor knows in advance where his pay is coming from, and the tendency is to: wards carelessness, and neglect. Ask any teacher who has seen medical inspection what she really thinks of it—or drop in unannounced sometime and see the sanitary precau- tions which are NOT taken as one pupil after another is examined. : Srtotoet be aby Bo ae hy Mok ahe ofe aSo-sgo-aSo ogo eGo age 4 2 ° ? ° mae So-efoege i have not touched in this article upon the phase of the right of the individual to medical freedom, because a lawyer could do that better than I, My objection to medical in- spection is based upon the premise that it is bound to be inefficient, and either valueless to the pupils or actively harmful according to how aggressive the school doctor is in his experimentation. I believe the older, more reputable members of the medical profession realize that if medical inspection in the schools is extended along the lines it has always followed that the public will soon discover what a farce it is, and the reputation of the entire profession will suffer in consequence. ; o e rQredfraies eo ee tote etoeg RO ? rOOO+ $ If the money necessary to maintain a school medical inspection department were spent on improving the sanitation of school buildings, the results would be only beneficial, and ee both children and parents would be better pleased. tai . , j se : : DR. J. H. JEFFREY DR. ANNA GRAHAM JEFFREY. | $ e e e 9 Ye , : 9 % | 3 CHIROPRACTORS $ Lyric Theater Bldg. Televhone 706 Graduates of the Palmer School of Chiropractic CASPER, WYOMING - = ppsreenpneneme 008 ere i