Disease and Its CausesCouncilman, W. T. (William Thomas)
Science
Disease and Its Causes
Councilman, W. T. (William Thomas)
Diseases -- Causes and theories of causation
Have there been new conditions developed within the period, or an
increase of existing conditions which can be regarded as disease
factors and which counterbalance the results which have come from the
knowledge of prevention and cure? There has been an increase of
certain factors of immense importance in the extension of disease.
These are:
1. The increase in industrialism, involving as this does an increase
in factory life. In many ways this is a factor in disease. (_a_) By
favoring the extension of infection, particularly in such diseases as
tuberculosis. (_b_) The life indoors, and frequently with the
combination of insufficient air and space, produces a condition of
malnutrition and deficient general resistance. (_c_) The family life
is interfered with by the mothers, whose primary duty is the care of
home and children, working in factories, and the too frequent
conversion of the house into a factory. (_d_) The influence of factory
life is towards a loss of moral stamina rendering more easy of
operation the conditions of alcoholism and general immorality. How
great has been this increase in industrialism, fostered as it has been
by conditions both natural and artificially created by unwise
legislation, is shown in the figures from the last census. The number
of factory operatives increased forty per cent between 1899 and 1909
and the total population of the country in the period between 1900 and
1910 increased twenty per cent. It is probable that the future will
see an extension rather than a diminution of mass labor.
2. The increase in urban life is as conspicuous as the increase in
industrialism. In 1880, twenty-nine and five-tenths per cent of the
population was urban and seventy and five-tenths per cent was rural;
in 1910, forty-six and three-tenths per cent was urban and fifty-three
and seven-tenths was rural, the increase being most marked in cities
of over five hundred thousand inhabitants. Of the total increase in
population between 1900 and 1910, seven-tenths per cent was in the
cities and three-tenths per cent in the country. City life in itself
is not necessarily unhealthy and there are many advantages associated
with it. The conditions which have chiefly fostered it are the
immigration of people who are accustomed to community life, the
increase in factory life and the increased number of people of wealth
who seek the advantages which the city gives them. The city has always
been the favored playground for the social game. The unhealthy
conditions of city life are due to the crowding, the more uncertain
means of livelihood, the greater influence of vice and alcoholism.
Prostitution and the sexual diseases are almost the prerogatives of
the cities.
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