Twentieth century Negro literature : $b or, A cyclopedia of thought on the vital topics relating to the American Negro
History
Twentieth century Negro literature : $b or, A cyclopedia of thought on the vital topics relating to the American Negro
African Americans -- History
One of the most serious phases of ignorance is criminal carelessness
in regard to nutrition. Cooking is that part of household work which
almost every woman undertakes and very few understand, and herein lies
the foundation of disease.
The long death-roll among Negroes contains an excessive number of
infants. Careful investigation shows that this slaughter of innocents
is due in large measure to improper feeding. Some mothers must be away
from their babies earning bread and shelter. Others leave their little
ones for less worthy and less honorable purposes. Others neglect their
offspring because they have a fancied or cultivated dislike of
children. It is a sad day for a people when happy motherhood
declines. Man has devised successful substitutes for natural food for
babies, but these should be used only when the best good of all
concerned can be subserved thereby. Nature's ways are wisest and best,
and parents must try to walk in those ways if they would have their
children have life and have it abundantly.
Far be it from us here to attempt a technical discussion of
tuberculosis, but in plain simple language, let us cite a few facts in
regard to lung diseases among Negroes.
The oft repeated statement that the Negro slave did not have
consumption, cannot be verified, for lack of authentic records on the
subject. The Negro free, however, is dying of consumption and kindred
diseases in appallingly large numbers.
Many theories in regard to consumption have been exploded, but it is
acknowledged by all, to be an infectious disease. As such, ignorant
people do not understand how to escape it; indeed, until anti-spitting
laws are more universal and more rigidly enforced, every one may be
exposed to these deadly germs. They respect neither race lines nor
intellectual grades. The Negro, however, seems to be peculiarly
susceptible to this class of ailments. 1. Because of comparatively
small lung capacity. 2. Because of general low nutrition. 3. Because
of lack of bath rooms and their proper use. 4. Immorality. 5. General
indifference to the incipient stages of the disease. Colds and coughs
are passed by as matters of course with little or nothing done to
prevent or cure them.
The physical life and death of man has a much more intimate connection
with his moral life than is at first thought apparent. Too many
children are robbed by Sin of a child's first right, viz.: the right
to be well born. If parents have lived lives of shame and thereby
weakened their bodies, the effects of this will be a sad legacy of
weakness in the persons of their children. Men and women given to
social impurity will hardly escape the notice of those about them.
Their characters are imitated and shame and weakness, physical as well
as moral, multiplied. "Sin conceived and brought forth Death."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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