CAMPAIGNING AGAINST THE "WHITE PLAGUE" AMONG FARMERS
Campaigning Against the "White Plague" Among Farmers A Modern Knight on His Gasoline Steed Invades the Rural Districts of Wisconsin T UBERCULOSIS—"the great white plague"—claims as its victims in...
...But until recently no feasible means of reaching the farmer has been brought forward—that is, other means than the circulation of literature, which is at best a poor substitute for personal work...
...That provided the means...
...Werle, on his gasoline steed, is independent of train schedules...
...The Wisconsin farmer is as progressive and as intelligent as his city brother...
...Five o'clock in the morning finds Mr...
...By noon he has gathered an audience in a near-by village...
...The Association found no difficulty in providing the man...
...But in that state, as in the others, the cities have claimed first attention...
...But, organized efforts to check this blight, and eventually to destroy it altogether, have been confined almost exclusively to the cities...
...hence the obligation of extending the anti-tuberculosis campaign to the isolated residents and the importance of a means, like this employed by Mr...
...He carries with him his stereopticon lantern, with curtain and slides, an exhibit of seventeen charts and a bundle of literature for free distribution, but in addition to that he carries a complete, though compact, equipment for sleeping out of doors and cooking his own meals...
...Mounted on this machine, like an ancient knight on his charger, Mr...
...In Wisconsin the educational campaign against tuberculosis has been particularly aggressive and effective...
...This progress has not been noticed in the country...
...He is not, however, dependent upon the hospitality of castles or monasteries as was the knight of old...
...Progress has been made in recent years in checking tuberculosis, and in decreasing the death rate caused by it, in the cities...
...The speed of his motor-cycle enables him to reach, even in sparsely settled sections, a large number of people in a day...
...There are good reasons why the great educational campaign for the prevention of tuberculosis should have had its beginning in the congested centers and should to-day be largely a municipal campaign...
...They are more easily reached...
...People in cities live closer together...
...Recently the Wisconsin Anti-Tuberculosis Association directed its campaign into the rural districts...
...Wisconsin is setting about to remedy that discrimination...
...Campaigning Against the "White Plague" Among Farmers A Modern Knight on His Gasoline Steed Invades the Rural Districts of Wisconsin T UBERCULOSIS—"the great white plague"—claims as its victims in the United States about two hundred thousand people every year...
...A generous individual presented the Association with a Harley-Davidson motor-cycle...
...In the crowded cities where are found the tenement districts, reeking with humanity, the toll of life is heaviest...
...Theodore Werle, a valued worker of the Association, has started on a tour of Wisconsin...
...He can reach farmers remote from town and remote from the main highways of travel, both of dirt and of steel...
...Lecturers and demonstrators on the practice of so living as to forestall the evil germs find audiences more easily accessible...
...In the evening he is miles away in another town, giving a lecture illustrated with stereopticon views...
...It has found a way to reach the farmer...
...The crusaders against this dreadful, and largely unnecessary, disease are extending their educational campaign into the rural districts, confident that good results will later be found not only in mortality statistics but also in the improved health of the farming communities and in the more wholesome living conditions through which alone comes public health...
...He is not limited to railroad trains...
...In the rural districts, too, the ravages of consumption are everywhere apparent...
...Wisconsin's population is one-half rural...
...Werle, in reaching the half that is not confined to cities...
...It has been recognized that tuberculosis is almost, if not quite, as much a rural problem as a city problem...
...Werle with a chart exhibit at a creamery, talking to the farmers as they bring in the milk...
...And of course there is the important fact that the "white plague" finds easiest access into the densely populated districts...
Vol. 4 • August 1912 • No. 31
