Salt Lake Tribune | 1904-05-29 | Page 6 | New England Consumptives

NEW ENGLAND CONSUMPTIVES. Dr. S. W. Abbott, secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Health, claims in a recent paper that tho death rate from consumption In the New England Eng-land States has decreased 50 per cent In the last half-century, and la now not over 20 per 10,000 living inhabitants. In explaining the decreased ravages of thla disease, while putting forth no specific reason for It, he Inclines to the opinion that consumption is an indoor disease, and that the larger outdoor life of the present nyiy be the caui?e. But it doea not in fact appear to be the case that there has been any particular par-ticular change in respect to outdoor or indoor life, that would give cause for the change. It is easy to account for It on other grounds, however, that are notoriously no-toriously true. The consumptives have come away from New England In thousands, thou-sands, and have occupied tho health lands to the south and wctrt until they have caused special enactments against their contamination and contagious expectoration. ex-pectoration. From North Carolina clear to the west coast the New England consumptives abound; they don't die at home any more, when they have money enough to take' them away, as New Mexico, Arizona Ari-zona and southern California can eppe-clally eppe-clally testify. No wonder the death-rate death-rate of consumptives has fallen off by half in New England; It has increased enormously elsewhere, from New England Eng-land recruits.