Vaughan sent a hurry call for Dr. R. W. E. Cole, city epidemiologist. "He has a well-developed case of smallpox," said Cole. Immediately there was a scattering in the courtroom. Spectators who had been enjoying the Monday morning grist, fought to get through the door at once into the lobby. They went down the stairs three steps at a time. "See that every prisoner who came in contact with this man is vaccinated," Vaughan ordered. "Also see that all bailiffs and jail attendants are vaccinated. Order the entire place fumigated." Sixty men were in the city prison when Smith was brought in Sunday morning. He was released several hours later on bond. Before his appearance Monday, a score of prisoners had been arraigned and released.. An effort will be made immediately to round them all up and see that they are vaccinated. Judge Vaughan was the first to be vaccinated. Smith was taken to the pesthouse. A low-turned gas jet or burner may, through changing pressure or a loose key, change into a raging fire menace while you sleep. NOTES OF PROGRESS IN SANITARY ENGINEERING IN OHIO MUNICIPALITIES Zanesville's new water plant, by which the city's Muskingum River supply will be replaced by well water, is expected to begin operations about May 15. The improvement consists of twenty wells and an entire new pumping station. Filtration of Cleveland's water supply, by means of the new West Side filtration plant, erected at a cost of $3.500,000, began in March. Fifty million gallons of filtered water per day were supplied at first enough to supply half the city - and this quantity was doubled by the latter part of April, permitting almost city-wide distribution. The maximum capacity of the plant is estimated at 150 to 160 millions of gallons. The city's maximum daily consumption is 135 millions. Twelve new wells being drilled to increase Canton's water supply were due to reach completion May 1. Preliminary work is being done. in Canton toward the construction of a trunk sewer, for which improvement a bond issue of $290,ooo has been authorized. A new sewage disposal plant has been completed in Xenia. This plant is of modern design and will produce a highly purified effluent. The plant was installed to correct the pollution of Shawnee Creek, which has been in a foul condition for a number of years. Infection in the family, coupled with poor housing conditions, is the principal cause of the spread of tuberculosis. TABLE OF CONTENTS EDITORIALS Summer Months Make Up the Typhoid Season - Typhoid Is Easily and Immediately Preventable-Typhoid Wastes Millions Needed for Liberty Bonds - California's Record in Lowering Typhoid Rate What a State Must Do to Prevent Typhoid Fever — Carrier Danger Is Best Avoided By Vaccination - Figures Show That Typhoid Is Not Properly Reported - Protect Vacationists for Sake of Com- munity — “Community Health Is a Purchasable Commodity" — Baby Needs Protection Against Summer Diarrhea.... Typhoid Fever in Ohio: Some Statistical Observations. By SARA KERR.... Water Purification as a Factor in the Elimination of Urban Typhoid Fever. PAGE The Ohio Public Health Journal VOL. IX MAY, 1918 No. 5 Summer Months Make Up the "Typhoid Season" EDITORIALS The "typhoid season" has arrived. The record of past years shows that the typhoid curve begins to rise in May or June, reaches its highest point in September and then falls off to its low mark in December or January. Whether this year will see the curve go to as high a point as last depends upon the work which health officials do in the next three months. There can be no delay if we are again to succeed in lowering our typhoid death total. Every health official in the state should feel it a personal duty to improve the situation within his own district. Look up the record of your district for the past few years. Note how large a share of the death total has usually been crowded into the summer months. Then resolve to make the figures tell a different story for 1918. Typhoid Is Easily and Typhoid fever is easily preventable, and to a large extent immediately preventable. In the case of no other disease can direct evidence of results achieved by preventive campaigns be so readily collected. The typhoid problem is fundamentally a simple one. All that is needed to stamp out the disease is to prevent human food and drink from being contaminated by human filth. An abnormally high typhoid rate in a community can be attributed only to neglect of simple sanitary precautions. The methods of typhoid prevention in both cities and rural communities are discussed elsewhere in this magazine. Stated in a general way, typhoid can be prevented by provision of pure water, proper disposal of sewage, elimination of flies, and regulation of food suppliesespecially milk so as to guard against contamination of these products. by typhoid carriers. Any health officer can do something toward making improvements along these lines. Every time an insanitary toilet is put out of existence -every time the use of a polluted water supply is prevented - every time a campaign for reducing flies and screening against them is instituted every time, in short, an obstacle is put in the path of the typhoid germ toward the human mouth, the typhoid death rate receives a severe blow. Typhoid, we repeat, is easily preventable. Any health official who is so inclined can prevent his share. And he will not have to wait long for results. Results will appear at .once in the form of a decreased typhoid death rate. Typhoid Wastes Millions Needed for Liberty Bonds Five million dollars wasted every year! That is what Ohio's present typhoid fever situation means, judged from an economic standpoint. Think how little of this money would be needed to stamp out most of the typhoid! Or think what this amount would do if invested in Liberty Bonds! Yet we continue to throw our yearly five millions away, merely . because we are too careless to direct it into proper channels of expenditure. The five million dollars is the approximate amount arrived at in a careful statistical study of the situation, taking into account the incidence of the disease in various age-groups, the estimated value of the human lives lost at these different ages, the loss of time from productive employment and the cost of treatment. With an average of about seven hundred deaths per year in the state, it is estimated that the case total must reach at least seven or eight thousand, fatalities being estimated at from one-fifteenth to one-tenth of the cases. The money loss represented by the deaths has been put at three millions per year and that represented by both deaths and nonfatal cases at five millions. When there are as many other uses for five million dollars a year as there are at present, with war needs mounting higher every day, typhoid prevention becomes a vital issue. Deliberate waste of money is to be condemned at any time, but just now it is a crime against the national well-being. Every typhoid case that is prevented means an average saving of seven hundred dollars. Every typhoid death that is prevented means an average saving of more than four thousand dollars. "Prevent typhoid and help finance the war!" should be Ohio's slogan during the present summer. |