RURAL SANITATION. COMMITTEE ON INTERSTATE AND FOREIGN COMMERCE, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, The committee met at 10.30 o'clock a. m., Hon. Thetus W. Sims (chairman) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. You may proceed, Mr. Sisson. STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS U. SISSON, A REPRESENTATIVÈ IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI. Mr. SISSON. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I don't know that I can say anything that would give the committee any additional information on a bill which has on other occasions been reported unanimously from the committee and unanimously passed by the House. Now, gentlemen, I want to call your attention first to a slight typographical error in the title of the bill. You will notice it says "a bill creating a division on rural sanitation." It ought to be "of rural sanitation." You will notice on the back of the bill it is properly stated: "creation of a division of rural sanitation." Now, gentlemen, the purpose of this bill is, as you know, to create in the Department of Public Health an additional division. The law creating the Department of Health makes provision for certain departments. Since that law was passed a great investigation has been made on the part of scientists throughout the country as to the cause of diseases, and by leaps and bounds since the investigations at Habana, Cuba, and the discovery of the cause of yellow fever, opened up a new field of investigation for bacteriologists and scientists throughout the country, and I am thoroughly impressed with the fact that along this line if we shall properly protect the health of the people future investigation must be made. Now, there are five diseases, as I understand it, from which perhaps 80 per cent of the deaths during one year occur, and because of the great prevalence of these diseases, investigations have been made, particularly of those particular afflictions of the human race, and they have discovered the exact and scientific cause for these diseases. We ought to proceed along the line of preventing disease rather than to administering the cure. The scientific investigations have gotten to be so practical that by the exercise of proper precaution you can prevent disease. It would be almost criminal on our part not to carry to the people that information which enables each citizen to protect himself and his family from the disease. The greatest of all evils that afflict the human family is ignorance. From ignorance grows prejudice. There has been a great deal of 3 prejudice on the part of a great many uninformed physicians—and if among the physicians, of course among the people against adopting the very simple and sanitary method of preventing diseases. It therefore becomes necessary that you carry the information directly to the ones affected. If we create the department of rural sanitation and put in charge of that department a man of talent, a man whose heart is in his work, and let him get in touch with the States, and through the States get in touch with the county health officers, we then bring directly to the health officer of the county the information that has been found to be accurate and valuable. He in turn through the schools can bring it to the attention of the people. Then organize in the county and bring the knowledge directly to the home owner. Now, I have not known a county where this campaign has been conducted where the people have not soon been thoroughly in sympathy with it, and where they do not feel that the taxes which they themselves pay out of their treasury have been well expended. Take typhoid fever, for instance. It is known that typhoid fever can only be communicated through the human feces; and objectionable as it may be to think about it, that is known to be the fact. Now, the proper care of the premises can absolutely eliminate and destroy typhoid fever, which carries off so many thousands of people every year, and those that recover have had to languish upon beds of pain and illness, and if there is a perfectly simple sanitary rule which, if observed, will prevent typhoid fever entirely, it looks as if the proper authority that does not carry that information to the people is at least guilty of criminal negligence, if I may not use a stronger term. Take the subject of malaria, which was investigated particularly by Dr. Gorgas and other scientists in connection with yellow fever, and it is now known that a certain mosquito causes yellow fever and a certain mosquito causes malaria. Now, by the exercise of the simplest and the cheapest method-take my little town, for example, where I live. I became interested in this subject and took the matter up with the physicians, and we buy every year, when the mosquitoes are developed, or in the latter part of the spring or the early summer, ordinary crude oil and we have one man that puts the crude oil out over the little city, and for each summer since then there is no trouble about sitting out on all the galleries, because you never hear a mosquito; you never see one. That only costs a very small amount of money. Mr. COOPER. May I ask a question there? What do you do with this crude oil? Mr. SISSON. They take the crude oil, and after each rain, and the water has drained off, they just put a spoonful of it on the little ponds or pools, wherever the water may accumulate. That was learned on the Canal Zone. I believe, Mr. Sims, you have been on this committee when it has been repeatedly to the Panama Canal Zone. The CHAIRMAN. I have not been there repeatedly; I have been there once. Mr. COOPER. That stops the breeding of the mosquitoes? Mr. SISSON. Absolutely. Mr. COOPER. Pardon me for interrupting you, but I am very much interested in this subject. |