GREAT WAR ON DISEASE.

Northern Advocate, 26 July 1923, Page 2

GREAT WAR ON DISEASE.

MILLIONS FOR BENEFIT OF

HUMANITY,

The Bockfeller Foundation, a great organisation founded by the American multi-millionaire, Mr J. D. RockfelW, and heavily endowed by him, lately announced that in the last ten years it has spent 76,757,040 dollars, or equivalent to about £15,352,000, for the welfare of mankind. It was a statement of a few figures. As the New York "Herald" says, it told nothing at all of the quiet sacrifices and heroic deeds of men occupying outposts on the battle line of science in the war t.o eradicate disease throughout the world. Nor did it tell of the obstacles encountered and ceaseless effort demanded despite such an enormous sum oi money. The "Herald" tells the story in a long review of what has been done and what is continuing to be done, and wo draw upon that article for information that cannot fail to prove of general interest. Let us premise by saying that the Foundation knows neither

country nor colour, nor does it confine its research to any particular form of disease that kills or pestilence that sweeps away human brings. Wherever there exists a menace t:> humanity, whether it be the malaria-carrying mosquito in the swampy lands of many countries, the yellow fever of South America and elsewhere, the hookwoim that is the scourge of India, the checking of the ravages of tuberculosis in France when in its wild stages, the spread of medical knowledge in China with allied succour from faniino, co nbatting epidemics of typhus in the Wast or medical and ptlier succour in the Great* World War and humanitarian aid and research connected therewith. All calls for aid have met with a re*.uiv response, and there have been a host of occasions where no call has been required to stimulate action. Of such was the gift of £400,000 a couple of years ago for a medical ce<itre in London —a gift that, as the "Herald" says, "astounded the British public and brought home to the. medical men of London there w.is a powerful agency in the United Stat "3

for the prevention of disease and the saving of lives" It is impossible to bring into focus the whole of the benefactors which

have flown from the RocKfeller Foundation, and tne reci'.al of a few must suffice as a general indication. There were £1,400,000 for the foundation of a School of Hygiene and Public Health at the John Hopkins University, and £400,000 for the establishment of another School of Health at Harvard University, the hope being that these schools would provide necessary public health workers. Of the total expenditure during the last ten years, £8,400, 000 has gone for public health work and medical education. The fight against hookworm, yellow fever, and malaria has absorbed over £1,200,000 of this amount, and £400.000 went' to combat tuberculosis in France. The International Health Board, which supervises the work, was established in 191 P., and the following year it expended £26,(500. This amour.t has been increased yearly until in 1922 i l s expenditures amounted to £3(58.450 —an indication of the tremendous increase in the scope and extent of its work. A total of £4,400,000 was contributed to various organisations in connection with the war, £200,000 to Herbert Hover's child relief fund, and other big sums to various public purposes.

But all this distribution of -grut ' wealth, all the good it has done and I may do would have been of small avail j without the aid of willing workers [ ready to accept grave personal risks. How great those risks have been is told j in the death roll of scientific investigators who have devoted their lives and their talents in the cause of common humanity. As an instance of what this means we quote the following from the "Herald": —"Up in the mountain fastnesses of Nicaragua there is living at this moment a young sanitation engineer engaged in an experiment which, if successful, will be of untold value to the health of millions of people inhabiting these belts scoured by malaria . . . ,He and his wife live alone in a native hut in the mountains hundreds of miles from the nearest settlement. An adjoining hut is rigged up as a rude laboratory and lilt-

field work is done by such natives as j can be obtained. At a short, distaneo I from the hut in a clearing is a mound of earth that marks the grave of Llic couple's first child . . . But there is no hint that the experimenter and his wife will relinquish their work. They will remain at the station until the task is finished and they will bo called elsewhere to fulfil some other function in the unending battle >f science against the destructive forces of nature." The general level of health among white men working in severe climates and amid strange environments is r«- j markable, but science fails now and j then and death takes its toll of those j who have c-ome armed with every weapon modern bacteriology can afford. Yellow fever has claimed many victims amongst its investigators, and, says the " Herald — "One of the most recent of these tragedies was the death of Dr. Howard B. Cross, in December, 1921, in the little village of Tuxtepec, only a little more than a month after he had stepped hopefully from the gang plank of the steamer at Vera Cruz. Dr. Cross was a brilliant bacteriologist, who had undergone several years of special study of yellow fever under Dr. Noguclii at the Bockfeller Institute to equip himself to assist in the diagnosis of doubtful and complicated cases of the disease. The latest discoveries of the laboratories in New York in the way of vaccines and serums,were at the command of Dr Cross, t>ut even these antitoxins failed to check the disease after he had penetrated to the very heart of the yellow fever belt. Ho was buried with highest honours by the Mexican Government and his name is perpetuated in the Howard B. Cross Public Health Laboratory at Vera Cruz."