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may be impracticable, but every community should ascertain accurately its own death rate and the causes of all deaths that occur therein. This knowledge the foregoing section is designed to enable all towns and villages to secure with the smallest possible amount of trouble, the method proposed being that of securing the prompt registration of all deaths and their causes by the local health authorities. It is true that the state law requires physicians to report all deaths in cases where they have been in attendance professionally to the county authorities within thirty days after such deaths have occurred, but there are many cases that are never reported under the operation of this statute for the reason that no physician has attended the patient at any time during the course of the fatal sickness, and it is not incumbent on any one else to make report. Now the undertaker or other person in charge of the burial survices can in all casesand with very little trouble obtain the information required by the foregoing section, and transmit it to the Board of Health, to whom it is necessary for the proper performance of their duties. An important part of the work of health authorities relates to the control of contagious disease, and any efficient action for such control must be based on the most accurate obtainable knowledge; the occurrence of several deaths in rapid succession from some form of contagious disease under existing laws, may be the first intimation of its presence, and in this point of view the registration of all deaths within a brief time after their occurrence assumes great importance.

The authority given to correct the cause of death by subsequent inquiry would tend to increase the accuracy, and consequently the value of the returns contemplated. Other facts may be required if it be deemed advisable, such as the place of birth, domestic condition, etc.

SECTION 13. No person within the limits of this

shall sell or offer for sale or use as human food any unsound or otherwise unwholesome meat, milk, fish, poultry, game, vegetables, fruit or other articles, or the flesh of any animal dead from diser se, or that was at the time of slaughtering suffering from any disease, or that was less than four weeks old; and any person violating any of the provisions of this section shall be liable to a fine of not less than twenty-five dollars or more than one hundred dollars, for each offence; and it shall be the duty of the Health Officer to seize upon any unsound or otherwise unwholesome article offered for sale or use in violation of the provisions of this section, and to saturate the same with kerosene or petroleum, or other

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wise to render the use thereof as food impossible, and thereafter to destroy the same as offal and refuse matter dangerous to the public health.

Section 13 is intended to enable the Health Officer to act summarily in preventing the sale of articles of food that may be for any reason unwholesome. The method laid down for rendering such articles unfit for use is one practiced in the city of Milwaukee for several years.

The remaining sections are formal, but needful to render the code complete. It may be added that the penalties attached to the various sections are those laid down by statute law in the same connection, or are within the amount mentioned in section 4608 of the Revised Statutes, which prescribes the penalties for disobedience to the ordinances of local Boards of Health.

SECTION 14. Any person who shall resist or obstruct the Board of Health or any agent or officer thereof while in the discharge of any duty, or who shali refuse or neglect to obey any directions given by the said Board in matters pertaining to its duties shall be liable to a fine not exceeding one hundred dollars, and not less than one dollar, or to imprisonment for a term not longer than three months, and not less than twenty-four hours for each offence.

SECTION 15. This ordinance shall be published in the newspaper* called the.. .printed in this.....

and shall be in full force and effect from and after the time of such publication. All ordinances and parts of ordinances inconsistent with the provisions of this ordinance or in any wise contravening the same are hereby repealed.

*Or otherwise as the Board may direct. The publication, however, should never be omitted, whether it be by newspaper or by posting in a given number of public places.

THE PREVENTABLE CAUSES OF TYPHOID FEVER.

BY PROF. ROBERTS BARTHOLOW, M. D., LL. D.,

Professor of Materia Medica, General Therapeutics and Hygiene in Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, Pa.

GERMS [MICRO-ORGANISMS; MICROBES:] ARE THEY CAUSATIVE OF SPECIFIC DISEASES? FORMER THEORIES OF TYPHOID

GENESIS.

Only within a comparatively short period has it been held that Typhoid Fever is produced by some special poison. It was not until the agency of the minutest living bodies in Nature was known (microscopic organisms, "Animalcules" in common language), that the character of the Typhoid poison began to be understood. It was held until recently that the Typhoid-producing agent was developed in the course of "crowd-poisoning," which is a necessary result of the aggregation of human beings in masses. Human ordure in cesspools, under conditions not known, was supposed to be an important poison, or a source of poison-generating material. Sewer gas also, was considered to have the same morbific or pathogenic power. That the noxious matters generated by the conditions of crowd-poisoning were active in the genesis of Typhoid was considered proven by the fact that as density of populations increased, so the number of fever cases increased. It was observed in this country that in the sparse settlements within the Malaria zone, malarial fevers first occurred; but when the density of the population became sufficient, Typhoid supplanted malarial fevers to a considerable extent. In the progress of scientific knowledge it has been found that another explanation must be given, and the theory of a Typhoid poison only becomes tenable by the discovery of morbific germs-micro-organisms or microbes (bacteria or bacilli).

Preventable Causes of Typhoid Fever.

The modern scientific definition of Typhoid and similar maladies, is that they are specific diseases arising from a special cause, are continually reproduced according to the original type or pattern, and are self limited in duration. Modification of symptoms, or of the external form, or of the whole morbid complexus may be imposed by the surrounding conditions -- by race, climate, social state and other circumstances to a limited extent; but the typical form persists, the essential changes of structure are always to be found, and in these, conformity in essentials to the original is preserved. What is true of the disease in its symptoms and in its morbid changes, is also true of its germ, in that the life-history of special organisms is correspondent in all important details, and they continually reproduce themselves in conformity to the laws of their being. It should be distinctly recognized that each special germ produces its own kind, and not another kind. The old phrase "like produces like" continues eternally true. Also in the vegetable kingdom forms are constantly reproduced through all time although they may be modified somewhat by their environments. A grain of wheat, sown in suitable soil produces wheat only. The same law governs the germs of disease: they produce their own kinds of disease, and these diseases, age after age, manifest themselves by the same external symptoms and internal changes of structure. In the natural history of Typhoid Fever we have a typical illustration of the same law. The first accurate description of this fever is equally descriptive of the fever of our day, and no modification is necessary, because a new discovery the Typhoid germ has now to be reckoned with.

It is understood, therefore, that Typhoid Fever is a special or specific form of fever and that its real source, its germ, or seed, or special organism, always produces its own kind. The product developed by the growth of its gerin may take on some peculiarities of form but remains typical alwavs in respect to essential features. The soil in which

Preventable Causes of Typhoid Fever.

the germ is planted may not be adapted to it- may be cold, barren and otherwise hostile; the germ may be stunted or blighted in its course of development; but if it grow at all, it will be found to present always, in some recognizable shape, the true characteristics.

The Typhoid germ has been the subject of many investigations. The first announcement of the discovery of this special micro-organism that attracted attention was that of Klebs.* Since then many others have been "discovered," but no satisfactory proof of such "discovery" has yet been offered. Until its toxic power has been demonstrated by the method to be hereafter described, a final conclusion is not possible. Before any given germ supposed to be causative of any special disease, can be admitted to universal. recognition as such, various essential powers must be shown to exist. If the tests to which it is not submitted are not satisfied, or are not complied with, the supposed germ is not genuine, how near soever it may appear to be so to the eyes of the prejudiced observer.

To test the nature of any pathogenic or disease-producing microbe, it must be cultivated, i. e., grown in or upon some suitable soil, as on a fresh section of a raw potato, on a surface of gelatine, or on or in some other material suitable for the purpose. Careful microscopic observation can then asertain the form and character of the growing organism and it can then be properly figured The infective or noninfective character of the organism can be demonstrated only by crucial experiments upon animals by inserting it into the tissues of animals. Although a decision is not fi nally reached regarding the micro-organism causative of Typhoid, the fact of its existence is no longer denied by bac. teriologists and pathologists in general.

*Archiv fur experimentelle Pathologie und Toxicologie, Vol. 1.