Save Fuel and Save Health, by Dr. Emery R. Hayhurst, Consultant, Division Health Department Loses Its Members on Embalming Board.. Pennsylvania Judge Levies Fine on Ohio Quarantine Violator.. Toledo Health Activities in 1917..... Public Health Administration in Russia... Appropriations for City Health Departments... Smallpox Prevalence High in Several Other States Besides Ohio.. Disease Notification May Have Bearing on Draft Classification.... Annual Report Shows What a County Nurse Can Do in One Year.. Recent Progress in Social Hygiene Work in Various Sections. Ohio Mortality Statistics for the Month of October, 1917..... Public Health Nursing Service: Report for December, 1917. Circumstances Cause Slight Change in Plan for Munition Survey. EDITORIALS Smallpox, a Warning Repeated Once More- Tell the Truth About Disease Conditions - Athens Enjoying Course of Health Instruction - Transportation Tieup and the Laboratories - Dr. Paterson Again Heads Tuberculosis Work - A Word of Thanks to the Press of Ohio - Results of Inattention to Health Administration — Child Hygiene Needed in Rural Districts-"Hooverizing" the Public Health - Look at HEALTH OFFICERS' ROUNDTABLE Akron's Health Problem- Chlorine Treatment Retained — Anti-Typhoid Treatment's Value-Way to Enforce Vaccination - New Health Officers Named - Bacteriologist 87 VOL. IX FEBRUARY, 1918 No. 2 Smallpox - A Warning EDITORIALS Warning and reproof have been administered more than once by the State Department of Health and still Ohio's smallpox outbreak grows more serious each week. Sometimes physicians are to be blamed for the spread of the disease sometimes local health officials- sometimes the victims themselves. In any case, an undue spread of smallpox in any locality means that someone-physician, health official or ordinary citizen-has, either willfully or through ignorance, been guilty of neglect. Smallpox is too easily preventable a disease to allow one to consider Ohio's recent unprecedented spread of the infection as a mere case of bad luck. The cardinal points in smallpox prevention are these: (1) Thorough vaccination of the community, (2) Careful diagnosis, (5) Adequate quarantine. All of these have, at one place or another and in varying degree, been disregarded in Ohio. The results are evident. Such an astonishing wave of smallpox as recent months have seen in the state will hurt Ohio in more ways than one. The reputation of the Buckeye commonwealth outside her own boundaries will certainly not be enhanced by the publication of the January statistics. Business relations with other states will suffer. Eighteen hundred smallpox quarantines in a month mean a heavy loss in wages and a diminution of the state's labor supply. Every one who is interested in Ohio's progress owes it to his state to aid in every way possible the stamping out of the smallpox menace. Tell the Truth About A certain community in the state — like numerous others reported a very large number of cases of smallpox in January. On January 24, there appeared in a paper in the town in question, the following article: Reports of a smallpox epidemic and hundreds of cases of the disease in which are being spread in neighboring communities, and without reason and instigators of such false reports should be hunted down and prosecuted. There have been six or eight families in.... ...quarantined for cases of small pox, which disease has, of course, worked itself through nearly the entire family, but as far as any epidemic of the disease existing in there is no occasion for any person to spread such a rumor, except to injure citizens in the business at...... The health board of... ......took prompt means to stamp out the spread of the smallpox and a strict quarantine has confined itself to the families affected. All cases have, with but wto exceptions, completely recovered, quarantine has been lifted, business is going on as usual, and any one desiring to come to.. may do so feeling that his health is much safer here in a town that safeguards the community by strict quarantine rules than in smaller villages where no health boards eixst and in communicable diseases are not restrained by the iron hand of the law. Persons in nearby towns who read the preceding article when it appeared and who now see figures given out by the State Department of Health are going to decide either that those "six or eight families" which smallpox "worked itself through" were unusually large families or that somebody is misrepresenting the situation. The newspaper article was evidently intended to reassure frightened persons in nearby places and prevent any injury to business in the smallpox-infested town. Did it achieve this aim? Probably not at all; certainly not more than temporarily. What, then, is its real result? To make persons in other towns in future believe the most wildly exaggerated rumors of disease conditions in the town in question; to make them, remembering this falsification, doubt any published statement this town may issue with regard to disease conditions. Probably the rumors whose instigators the paper thought should be prosecuted were exaggerated; certainly there were not "hundreds" of cases in the town in January. Just as certainly, however, there were more than "six or eight families" quarantined—or at least far more than that number had smallpox and should have been quarantined. Why should not the newspaper have met these exaggerated rumors with a calm statement of the true situation and of the measures undertaken to remedy conditions? Would not the long run effect of such a course have been better? The truth may hurt, but it will never do the permanent damage that falsehood always does. Athens Enjoying Course of Health Instruction * The city of Athens is being educated in health matters this winter by a series of free lectures, addressed to "women be tween the ages of eighteen and eighty." "Live a Little Longer" is the general title of the course, which contains lessons in how to keep well and how to care for the sick and injured. The result should be an extension of knowledge of these subjects. that will serve as a basis for the upbuilding of a higher standard of health in the community. Weekly lectures are being given, some of them by physicians of the city and others by Miss Grace E. Donsing, the public health nurse. The course extends over twenty weeks. Subjects to be discussed by the physicians are these: "Care of Childbirth," "Care of Child," "Adolescence," "Emergencies," "First Aid," "Motherhood," "Disease and Its Cause," "Anatomy," "Goitre," "Contagious Diseases," "Diet and Its Relation to Disease," "Diseases of Special Senses." Miss Donsing will conduct these lessons: "Baby's Bath," "Bed Making," "Home Care of the Sick," "Fever Nursing," "Bath Giving to Bed Patients," "Special Baths," "Infant Feeding," "Invalid Food and Preparation." The physicians of the city, the Federation of Women's Clubs and the Chamber of Commerce are co-operating in, the course of instruction, which has been approved by the board of education and the city health department. Transportation Tieup and the Laboratories * Physicians, health officials and others who have occasion to submit specimens to the Division of Laboratories of the State De partment of Health are cautioned to take into account, in making their shipments, the present uncertainty in transportation facilities. During the past few months numerous specimens have been lost in transit enroute to the laboratories. Bottles of water have arrived broken by the freezing of their contents, and thus so contaminated that analysis was useless. Under conditions such as we have experienced recently, the railroads and express companies can not be depended upon invariably to get shipments to their destination, and certainly can not be trusted to deliver them promptly and in good condition. If it is essential that a specimen be examined without delay, the sender will do well to bring it in himself or to dispatch it by messenger. Dr. Paterson Again John R. McDowell, who is a major in the medical corps of the army. Dr. Paterson was head of the tuberculosis division from the time of its organization, in 1913, until September, 1916, when he left to resume the position of executive secretary of the Ohio Society for the Prevention of Tuberculosis, which he had filled before the Department's anti-tuberculosis work was begun. The return of the former division head insures the efficient conduct of the state's anti-tuberculosis activities during the war, when such efficiency is especially needed. A Word of Thanks to the Press of Ohio The State Department of Health has recently undertaken to extend its efforts in the field of newspaper publicity by sending out a weekly news letter to every paper in Ohio. The news letter comprises items telling of progress in public health work in the state and educational matter designed to help the people of the state protect themselves against disease. The inauguration of this service brought a spontaneous response from papers, both large and small, throughout the state. Offers of cooperation and assurance of willingness to aid in every possible way a program for the conservation of Ohio's health came in in gratifying numbers. Evidence that these expressions of support were more than mere words was furnished by the publication of the Department's material in many papers, from the smallest country weeklies to the largest city dalies. Newspaper men of the state are asked to consider this editorial as a personal word of appreciation to each one of them from the State Department of Health. The Department does not under-estimate the importance of support from the press in arousing the interest of the people in any movement or program. It realizes that public health work, to be most efficient, must be able to reach out and touch the individual citizen. And the simplest way to achieve this necessary contact is through the columns of the newspapers. Ohio newspapers have assumed with an encouraging willingness the responsibility which has been offered to them. The State Department of Health both congratulates and thanks them. Results of Inattention to Health Administration A "horrible example" of what lack of attention to public health matters can do to a community is furnished in a report of an investigator of the State Department of Health, filed after he had in |