Entered as second-class matter at the Postofice at Columbus, Ohio. TYPHOID FEVER NUMBER: Statis- 221916) Nikt STATE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH. PUBLIC HEALTH COUNCIL J. R. RUSSELL E. I. ROBERTS AMY L. MERCER, R. N. LEO F. EY A. S. HULETT Q. A. CAMPBELL L. S. HEXTER BERNARD MCELWEE Offices and Laboratories of the State Health Department are located on the Ohio State University Campus. The offices are in Page Hall; the Laboratories are in the Hygienic Laboratories' Building. TABLE OF CONTENTS 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. |