National Hygienic and Economic Conditions

Abstract

tions of a nation are closely and doubly related. On the one hand, health constitutes the greatest wealth. Only that nation can progress economically whose individual members can take an active part in universal competition free from disease and illness. On the other hand, experience teaches us that ere long economic calamity infalliby tends to undermine physical powers of resistance and to impair health. Want and sickness are twin sisters. Now sickness opens the door of the house and allows want to enter. Again, it is want which advances, with sickness in its retinue. Thus it is in the life of individuals and none the less, as history shows us, in the life of nations. The present condition in Germany gives new evidence of this close inter-relation of national hygienic and economic conditions. Conversely, to be sure, the development during the last few decades before the war likewise proves this assertion. The struggle against diseases, which unnaturally end the life of man prematurely, has been conducted in Germany with greatest tenacity and with good results. In the years from 1871 to 1880 for every one thousand population the death rate was 27.1; at the close of the century, it was only about 20; in the year 1913, only 15; therefore continued decrease in mortality figures and continued increase in the average longevity are clearly shown. To bring about this result, the constant sanitary development of the whole country is necessary. To this we owe our increased knowledge of the causes of diseases and of the means of combating them. Of great importance in this connection is the 'development of our social statutes, especially those pertaining to the insurance against disease. Particularly in the years 1886 to 1900 the improvement of the conditions of living in Germany may be traced to a decrease in mortality among those in the age of greatest productiveness. The law on sickness insurance prevents hardship resulting from sickness. Every patient is assuredc of a physician, treatment in a ospital and the most necessary means for his subsistence as well as for the subsistence of his family. Consequently, the possibility of convalescence and the return of earning capacity increase. Since the entire nation has to provide the means which accrue to the benefit of the individual in the case of illness, so the entire nation is also most vitally interested in seeing that as few human beings as possible are sick, and that the patients shall be restored to health as soon as possible and their earning capacity renewed. The greater the number of healthy people who are able to work, the more canbe accomplished economically. Every day a workman is ill increases the cost of the product and harms competitive ability. If, therefore, it is to the greatest interest of the entire nation to prevent sickness in general or to do everything possible in the initial stages of illness to decrease its duration or to bring about a final cure without danger of