§ 1. Money appraisal of preventable wastes - Doctor Farr has estimated the net economic value of an English agricultural laborer at various times of life by discounting his chance of future earnings after subtracting the cost of maintenance. On the basis of this table we may construct a rough estimate of the worth of an average American life at various ages, assuming that only three-fourths of those of working age are actually earners of money or housekeepers. It gradually rises from a value of $90 in the first year to $4,200 at the age of 30, and then declines until it becomes negative for the higher ages. This estimate assumes $700 per year as the average earnings in middle life. This is largely conjecture, but is regarded as a very safe estimate. Applying this table to the existing population at various ages in the United States, we find that the average value of a person now living in the United States is $2,900, and the average value of the lives now sacrificed by preventable deaths is $1,700. The latter is smaller than the former because the age of the dying is greater than the age of the living. Applying the $2,900 to the population of eighty-five and a half millions, we find that our population may be valued as assets at more than $250,000-000,000; and since the number of preventable deaths is estimated at 630,000, the annual waste from preventable deaths is 630,000 times $1,700 or about $1,000,000,000. This represents the annual preventable loss of potential earnings.

We saw in Chapter III that there are always 3,000,000 persons in the United States on the sick list, of whom about 1,000,000 are in the working period of life and about three-quarters are actually workers and must lose at least $700, which makes the aggregate loss from illness more than $500, 000,000. Adding to this another $500,000,000 as the expense of medicines, medical attendance, special foods, etc., we find the total cost of illness to be about $1,000,000,000 per year, of which it is assumed that at least one-half is preventable. Adding the preventable loss from death, $1,000,000,000, to the preventable loss from illness, $500,000,000, we find one and a half billions as the very lowest at which we can estimate the preventable loss from disease and death in this country. The true figures from the statistics available may well amount to several times this figure, but when statistics are based partially on conjecture, they need to be stated with special caution.

§ 2. The cost of conservation - In Huddersfield the annual deaths of infants for ten years had been 310. By systematic education of mothers, the number in 1907 was reduced to 212. The cost of saving these 98 lives was about $2,000 or about $20 each. General Leonard Wood declared that the dis-covery of the means of preventing yellow fever saves annually more lives than were lost in the Cuban war. The hook-worm disease in the South impairs the earning power of its workmen by 25 or 50 per cent. To restore this earning power costs, by curing this disease, on an average, less than $1 for each case. These and other examples show that the return on investments in health are often several thousand per cent per annum. Probably no such unexploited opportunity for rich returns exists in any other field of investment. An actuary suggests that if insurance companies should combine to contribute $200,000 a year for the purpose of improving the public health, the cost would be one-eighth of 1 per cent of the premiums, and it would be reasonable to expect a decrease in death claims of much more than 1 per cent. Even this 1 per cent would make a profit of more than seven times the expense.