100 years ago in The Record
Tuesday, Nov. 27, 1917
The city of Troy comes in for some diplomatic criticism from state health officials at a Rotary Club luncheon this afternoon, The Record reports. “Public Health is Purchasable” is the luncheon’s theme. As district health inspector Dr. Charles S. Prest observes, this “does not mean public health can be purchased with money alone. Of course it cannot. We all know that. “It means, however, ‘Public Health is Purchasable’ by cooperation and support” for a city health department which, Prest claims, isn’t getting enough of either. Prest makes a point of praising the city for some real public health achievements. “The city of Troy is without doubt the best vaccinated in New York state, if not in America,” he claims. While “Troy for years had a noticeably high infant mortality rate … for the past few years it has shown a consistent decline which will soon place it safe below the dangerous figures of past years.” The inescapable fact is that “Troy has had for years the highest gross death rate of the second class cities of the state” and “the lowest per capital appropriation for health purposes of any second class city.” However, given that the city’s population has been “practically stationary for several years, with but little immigration, with a marked excess of women over men in adult life,” Prest tells the Rotarians that “the wonder to me has rather been that … Troy has made as good a showing as it has.”
Trojans are quick to blame the city’s high mortality rate and its high incidence of lung diseases on the presence of the Lakeview Sanatorium, which takes terminal tuberculosis patients from out of town. But while Prest has taken “due consideration” of Lakeview, he concludes that the mortality rate “still remains the highest,” though “a favorable decline has been noted.”
Troy could do better by giving more support to its health department. While Prest praises longtime health officer Dr. Calvin E. Nichols, he notes that health department workers “are going it almost alone over there in the basement of city hall – out of sight and almost out of mind.”
State deputy health commissioner Dr. Mathias Nicoll jr. states cryptically that “The rise of individualism with a production of words and not deeds has hindered our work” in Troy and other places.
The real problem with second- class cities like Troy, Nicoll contends, is that city health officials are too often part-time workers. “The time has come when [cities like Troy] should have trained physicians who are adequately paid and should give all their time to this work,” he adds.