Ten Days in a Tent

Abstract

Lg oKIE! lookie! lookie! Right this way ladies and gentlemen! Step right up! The greatest health bargain of the century! Do you know your blood type? Have y6u had a chest x-ray recently? Will you spare thirty minutes and a few cents to protect your life? Of course, you will! Right this way! Step into our tent. Are you wondering what this is all about? When the medical division of the Utah State Civil Defense Council asked the Utah State Department of Health to study the mass blood-grouping program that had been carried out in certain counties of Utah, the reports revealed that very few people knew their blood type. Even fewer carried an identification card with pertinent information which would be helpful in the event of a disaster. The value of a civil defense program was further emphasized when the lives of three persons were saved because their blood type was known. These reports prompted the civil defense leaders in the state to ask the Salt Lake City health department to assume leadership in establishing a blood typing center at the Utah State Fair. The tents would be equipped for blood typing and taking chest x-rays of visitors at the fair. Staff members would give health information. Because the mass immunization clinics and ass tuberculosis surveys had been so successful, the leaders thought that a mass education and blood-grouping program could be carried out in this way.