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Show M EPICEilG 1S: GOfilTROLLED I IB YORK H. W. Jones of the Jones Shoe Store on Washington avenue calls attention to the following extracts taken from an interview with Dr. Royal S- Cope-land, Cope-land, City Health Commissioner of New York City, who attributed New York's success" in dealing with the epidemic to the close coordination of every department of the city and the harmonious working of all officials. Said Dr. Copeland: "The first thing that was done almost al-most everywhere but Now Y'ork was to close the schools," he said, "and the theatres and all places of public assemblage. as-semblage. In some communities they; went so fas as to prohibit small stores from admitting more than three persons per-sons at a time. All sorts of extreme and absurd methods were adopted in some places. I do not mean to criticise criti-cise the closing of schools and theatres the-atres elsewhere," he added. "They may have been just tho right things to "do in those places; I don't know their conditions. But I do know that in our city, some of tho most important methods of disease control is the public school system. "Wc have practically 1,000,0,00 children chil-dren in the public schools, about 150,-000 150,-000 of them from tenement homes. i uusi; uumcs uiu iiuijui:iili; unsanitary unsani-tary and crowded. Tho children's parents par-ents are occupied with the manifold duties involved in keeping the wolf from the door. No matter how loving they may be and, of course, they are just as loving as any parents anywhere any-where they simply have not the time to give the necessary attention to the initial symptoms of the disease, oven if they should have enough knowledge to recognize and meet them, which they rarely have. "When the childrne are sent to school they go away from home with clean faces and hands and with clean outer clothing, at least. They leave their often unsanitary homes for large, clean, airy school buildings, where there is always a system of inspection, and examination enforced, and where during the epidemic all the details of such work were rigedly adhered to. The. ohild is not permitted to linger In the basement, corridor, or yard; he must go into the schoolroom and report re-port to his teacher. As the children say, sho gives him the 'once over.' If she finds a running nose, red yes, a cough, or other symptoms of cold or possible Influenza ho is sent to a room by himself to wait until he can be i thoroughly examined. If he has a temperature or Is found to have Influenza Influ-enza he is sent home In the care of the Board of Health, and one of pur nurses or doctors determines at once whether his home conditions are such that he can be given the proper Isolation Iso-lation to protect the other members of the household and the proper care for himself. If not, he is taken to a hospital. If home conditions are satisfactory sat-isfactory our representatives find out whether the family has a private physician, phy-sician, and, if not a physician of the Board of Health takes charge of the case. "Now, how much bettetr it has been to have those children under tho constant con-stant observation of qualified persons than to close the schools, let the children chil-dren run the streets and assemble when and where they would and if they get influenza to let them get it under conditions of which the Health Department had no knowledge and In which it was not prepared from the start to deal with the situation in the best way. In other words, our control con-trol of the children in school secured them a degree of safety that would not have been possible if they had been allowed loose on the streets. And, moreover, the schools gave us tho opportunity op-portunity to educate both the children and their parents to the demands of health. |