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Show Report Given of Communicable I Disease In discussing the seriousness of pneumonia and other communicable diseases last week, Dr. J. L. Jones, Commissioner for the Utah State Board of Health, pointed out that there were 16,042 cases of communicable com-municable disease reported in Utah in 1937. The largest numbers were from chickenpox, influenza, whooping whoop-ing cough, scarlet fever and mumps. Although much suffering and economic eco-nomic waste resulted from these unnecessary un-necessary diseases, there were relatively rela-tively few deaths. Pneumonia, on the other hand, had only 638 cases reported in 1937 but over 59 per cent of these: name- ly, 334, resulted in death. Manj of those deaths could have been prevented. "Forty-two per cent of all deaths from pneumonia occur between the ages of 15 and 64, in the years of greatest productivity. "The one thing of greatest importance im-portance in saving lives from pneumonia pneu-monia is early diagnosis and treatment. treat-ment. This means you must call your physician early. A cold followed fol-lowed by a sudden chill, fever, pain in the side, cough and blood tinged sputum, is the usual onset of pneumonia. pneu-monia. If these symptoms arise, call your doctor at once as every hour counts in pneumonia. "Your physician will determine if you have pneumonia and will make tests on blood and sputum at once to assist him in the examination to be followed. 5'era are available which aid greatly in recovery from certain types of pneumonia. Every day's delay in providing the body of a patient with these sera means more deaths. "Shall we have over 400 deaths in Utah every year from pneumonia? "If you think you might have pneumonia don't wait to go to bed until ordered to do so by your doctor doc-tor but go to bed before the doctor arrives. It is essential in this disease that the patient be completely com-pletely at rest in bed and should not even feed himself or move in bed, let alone go to the bathroom. "Two things are essential in pneumonia, early medical care and good nursing care." |