Railroad Accidents. In 1883, there were injured, coupling cars. 98 8 109 18 174 10 126 9 134 19 240 Since the creation of this Board in 1878, one hundred and fifty-nine persons have been killed and thirteen hundred and thirty-nine injured, coupling cars. We had hoped better results than seem to have been attained by the limited use of automatic couplers. We have confidence that casualties will be reduced in as great a rate as in the item of caught in frogs, which, in 1884, is reported as killed, eleven, this year but one. Thirty-two persons were killed and fifty-two injured falling from trains. When the air brake is universally applied to freight trains we think that much of the exposure to loss of life and personal injury will be removed. To one who has watched the movement of freight trains carefully, and the wrenching and breakage that seems to belong to the best management of the past, the conviction is unavoidable that economy requires as soon as practicable the application of brakes operated from the engine to all parts of the train at once. The dictates of humanity, as well as the financial interests of the roads, call for as rapid a change in this respect as practicable. Ten persons were killed and sixty injured getting on and off trains while in motion. This is made by the Iowa statute a penal offense, and as far as we are able to judge, accidents from this cause are the result of individual recklessness, for which we can suggest no remedy. Nine persons were killed and eleven injured stealing rides, most of these were on the Chicago & Northwestern, and probably the result of a wreck. It is astonishing the numbers that travel about the country in exposed positions on railway trucks and in freight cars, with apparently no motive but the gratification of a taste for vagrancy. Thirty-six persons were killed and twenty-five injured while trespassing on track. The reports of this Board, covering a period of eleven years, show that three hundred and thirteen persons have been killed and two hundred and three injured, while walking on the track. Sixty-one per cent of these accidents are fatal. We have reported this condition year after year, and see a gradual yearly increase of death and injury from this unnecessary exposure. We have suggested before that walking on track be made a penal offense, not for the benefit of the railway companies, but for the protection of the public. Something should be done to impress upon the public mind the danger. The convenience and advantage of using the track for a highway can hardly compensate for the death-rate of three hundred people, and the serious injury of two hundred more, an average of sixty a year, that will Railroad Accidents. continue as long as something is not done to check the practice. Familiarity with trains is no protection. In England walking on track is prohibited, and the prohibition enforced as a public regulation. There were more than twice the number of persons killed while coupling cars in 1888 than in 1887. Of the total number killed, eighty-four were from preventable causes. This is a serious loss to the State, from a financial and economic standpoint. Every human being of adult age forms a part of the industrial wealth of the people. They can be estimated at a money value. The courts of this country have fixed an average standard of five thousand dollars as the sum a railroad company must pay for the loss of a human life, caused by its own negligence. Added to this should be the various expenses incident to railroad accidents, as medical attendance, burial expenses, etc. In the death of these eighty-four persons we have a loss, to-wit: Eighty-four persons at $5,000 each... Medical attendance, care, etc,, at $50 Total. .$422,000.00. 4,200.00 4,200.00 .$430,400.00 It may safely be estimated that the loss to the industrial wealth of the State, from clearly preventable causes, is more than three quarters of a million dollars per year. Such a loss of life, and such wholesale maiming of bodies and limbs is nothing less than criminal, and the State Board of Health would be grossly derelict in official duty, if it did not most earnestly protest against it; and it, therefore, indorses the utterances of the Railroad Commissioners in regard thereto; and, would further urge upon the legislature such action as will provide against it. Self-preservation is the first law. The protection of human life is the supreme law. Railroad companies have now no valid reason for refusing to adopt the necessary appliances to prevent entirely the loss and damage from the link and pin coupler. Adequate and successful automatic substitutes have been perfected. Only mercenary reasons exist against their uniform and universal adoption on House Plants and Health. every railroad in the United States. It is simply a question of a few dollars' expense-a consideration which has, and should have, no weight whatever in the enactment of compulsory measures necessary to secure protection to human life. HOUSE PLANTS AND HEALTH. There is perhaps nothing that so eloquently appeals to our love of the beautiful as Nature's varied flowers and foliage. In sickness or in health; at home or abroad; in prosperity or in adversity, the humblest flower, and the verdant or variegated leaf, has a mission of good cheer and help to all. There are but a few of the countless variety of flowers and leaves that exhale a perfume that is injurious, and these are well recognized. It would be well, if all people could be induced for sanitary reasons, as well as the aesthetic, to cultivate and cherish plants. There is no reason why, in our Northern homes, the blooming flower, with its rich and health-giving fragrance, as well as the nonblooming plants, may not be seen and enjoyed in Winter as well as in the Summer. Their presence is especially commended in all our State institutions for the insane; the hospital for the treatment of the deaf mutes; the reformatories; the orphan's home, in all our public as well as private schools; as well as our private houses. None are so poor as not to be able to afford a flower or some plant. It is pleasing to note the growing favor with which house plants and floriculture are coming to be regarded as sanitary agents. It is but a few years since physicians largely, and the laity generally, looked upon house plants, especially flowering plants, in a living House Plants and Health. or sleeping room, as positively injurious. They were generally looked upon as God's beautiful creatures; but if good creatures, as having their place, and that place out of doors. A happy and sensible change in public and professional sentiment is taking place. They are not only regarded as harmless, but it has been abundantly demonstrated that they possess and exert therapeutic and healthful influences. They are especially beneficial in rooms deprived of moisture by hot air furnaces, since the transpiration of moisture by their foliage supplies the exhausted and much needed moisture of the air. It has been also demonstrated that the perfume-bearing flowers, and foliage, especially, produce ozone; an essential and vitalizing principle of the atmosphere. Persons living and working in green-houses, and conservatories, are notoriously long-lived and healthy. Persons with an inherited and acquired predisposition to pulmonary disease have enjoyed good health while in the conservatories and green-houses, and on leaving to engage in other pursuits have rapidly developed their tendency. There are many instances of persons with advanced Consumption, who have been greatly benefited by living in an atmosphere fragrant with perfume-bearing flowers. They have a solarium in connection with the New York City Hospital, in which is a great number of foliage and flowering plants, and convalescents find their most rapid and uninterrupted improvement in proportion to the time spent in this department of the hospital. When our homes and hospitals, and our public schools and seminaries of learning, shall contain more of these beautiful, mute evangels of health, another important step will be taken in not only making these places the pleasant spots of earth, but the most healthful. If possible, every public hall and church, should, during every service held therein, be decked and decorated with these silent and powerful promotors of a healthier life here, and antetypes of a brighter life hereafter. Consumption-Its Cause and Prevention. CONSUMPTION. ITS CAUSE AND PREVENTION. There is no single disease that carries off so many of the human family yearly as Consumption,--nor is there any disease in the United States, nor in Iowa, as a part thereof, so fåtal as this. Until comparatively recently it has generally been regarded hereditary and climatic in its origin—a result of cold or exposure. Never, however, has there been such a rapid change in public sentiment in regard to sanitary matters as has taken place since Koch discovered the bacillus of Tubercle, and announced to the world that Consumption was a communicable disease. It is within less than a decade of years, that a book was written entitled, "Is CONSUMPTION CONTAGIOUS?" The author strongly declared that it was, and yet adduced a mass of evidence that it was not. Now, there is scarcely one who does not believe it to be a contagious disease and preventable. A few months ago the Health Department of New York City, appointed a commission of eminent physicians to thoroughly investigate the subject and report as to the best means of preventing Tuberculosis. The question is of such vital importance because of the wide-spread desolation produced by this disease, that their report in full, and the rules adopted by the Health Department of New York City, in accordance with the suggestions made by the committee respecting preventive measures are given in full. Unfortunately several of the rules are seemingly impracticable in the present state of society; and yet the observance of any of them will to that extent lessen the danger. The faithful observance of all, would infinitely lessen the number of cases. It is recommended that all carefully read the report and the rules adopted, and faithfully use every endeavor to practice them. |