Telephones Save Lives 1930
FEW TELEPHONES MEAN HIGH DEATH-RATE
The influence of good telephone service on the death-rate of a community was urged recently in Great Britain by Maj. Burdon Evans before the Montgomeryshire Health Insurance Committee. Says Dr. E.E. Free in his Week’s Science (NewYork):
“In the Machynlleth Rural District of Wales, Major Evans reported, the death-rate for the past nine years had been 10.1 persons per thousand of the population. This district has little telephone service, so that messengers may need to travel fifteen miles or more, the Major reported, in order to summon a physician in an emergency. In the remainder of the same county, provided with more adequate telephone service, the death-rate for the same period was reported as only 13.7 persons per thousand of population; disclosing an excess of nearly 18 per cent. of deaths in the telephoneless district as compared with neighboring regions with telephones.
“Many illnesses and accidents which will prove fatal if no physician is quickly available are easily cured, the Major pointed out, by prompt professional aid.
“No small part of the lower death-rates of cities in recent decades may be ascribed, it is probable, to telephones, improved ambulance service, quicker ways of getting other kinds of help in emergencies, and so on, rather than to sanitation or medical advances.
“Similar effects of poor communications may be important also, it is suggested, as one cause of the relatively high death-rates in so-called backward nations, often ascribed instead to poor food and bad sanitation.”
Source: The Literary Digest for May 24, 1930
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