If 72 per cent. of contagious diseases in Akron were smallpox we would be isolated from surrounding communities, schools would be closed, business would be materially interfered with and all the resources of the city would be devoted toward wiping out the plague. Smallpox rarely kills. It cannot go about in disguise, as venereal infection can. It cannot be transmitted to unborn children, as venereal infection can. It does not unseat the mind, as venereal infection does. A duty that cannot be ignored confronts the city. That is to reduce the cause of infection as much as it is susceptible of being reduced This cannot be done by wringing our hands and saying it is an age old problem that cannot be solved. It has passed the danger mark, and if we leave undone anything that can be done what will we say when we ask for large bond issues to minimize conditions not half so bad as the circumstances (whatever they are) that are responsible for the almost unbelievable prevalence of venereal disease? As the OHIO PUBLIC HEALTH JOURNAL recently remarked, in commenting upon the fact that Akron was reporting more venereal cases than any other city in the State, there is no reason to believe that Akron has a higher prevalence than many other cities. The physicians and health officials of the Rubber City have simply awakened much earlier than have some of their colleagues elsewhere to the importance of reporting these diseases. The facts which are being brought out by the efforts of these men to obey the regulations, backed by the activities of newspapers which are not afraid to print the truth, should do much to educate the people of Akron in regard to the danger within their gates. Editors, physicians and health officials should profit by the example here given of what they can do to restrict the spread of venereal diseases, the greatest health menace of the day. What are the real figures on venereal prevalence in your city? How do they compare with the reported figures? * Some Water Supply Lessons Two lessons are to be learned from the in a Typhoid Epidemic recent Xenia typhoid epidemic, described elsewhere in this magazine. The first of these is that no community should depend for its water supply upon a source which is safe only with disinfection. The second is that no purification plant can safely be operated without expert supervision. Disinfection, like anything else in which the human factor is all-important, is an exceedingly fallible process. It is safe only insofar as the man entrusted with the addition of the chemicals performs his duties unerringly and as the chemicals used are of good quality. If the man in charge of the plant makes a mistake or if a low-grade supply of chemicals is received, the public is exposed to an epidemic like Xenia's. In Xenia no blame is to be attached to the superintendent of the disinfection plant. He was faithful in the performance of his duties. as they had been mapped out for him: he added a given amount of bleaching powder regularly for a given quantity of water pumped. The bleaching powder, however, was below normal strength. And the superintendent, having no chemical training, could not detect this fact. As a result, the people suffered. So are they likely to suffer in other cities of the State where similar conditions exist. Every community using water from a source so impure as to require disinfection should begin developing a new supply as soon as possible. In the meantime bleaching powder, if used, should be abandoned in favor of liquid chlorine, not subject to deterioration such as occurred in Xenia, and the plant should be supervised by a technically trained expert, able to keep a careful check upon the quality of the disinfected water. Expert Supervision Necessary in Water Purification * In connection with the fact of the lack of expert supervision at the Xenia water disinfection plant, brought out in the foregoing paragraphs, it is of interest to note the extent to which such supervision prevails in the purification plants of the State in general, both those employing the disinfection method and those filtering their water by the rapid sand process. Figures on this subject have been compiled by the Division of Sanitary Engineering of the State Department of Health. There are in operation in the State forty-eight filter plants and twelve disinfection plants. Of the filter plants thirty-two have and sixteen have not expert technical supervision. For the disinfection plants. the figures are: eight with and four without such supervision. A further analysis of the figures shows that the privately owned plants are greater offenders in this regard than are those under municipal ownership. Of the sixteen privately owned filter plants, only seven have expert supervision, while only seven of the thirty-two municipal filter plants are without such supervision. In the disinfection plant class the score is even, four of the eight municipal and two of the four privately owned disinfection plants having expert supervision. Operation of a purification plant by a man without technical training, however faithful and conscientious he may be, is always dangerous. The trained man can detect at once, by examination of the treated water, whether purification is being properly carried out. Where an untrained man is in charge, imperfect purification is more likely to be detected after the damage has been done. Now Is the Time to Prevent the Winter's Smallpox Is the smallpox epidemic over? The people and the health officials of the State of Ohio have it in their power jointly to say that the answer to this question shall be "Yes." Vaccination and revaccination will prevent smallpox. That axiom holds within its six words the solution of the smallpox problem. If it is efficiently put into practice, instead of being held very largely as a mere piece of theoretical knowledge, this winter will see no repetition of the conditions which soiled Ohio's health record last winter. The past few months' case reports show the disease to be at a low ebb, as is usually the case in summer. The season is now here when smallpox prevalence normally rises. Shall it reach this year a peak like that which it attained last year? Vaccinate Ohio thoroughly and there will be no such peak. Fail to vaccinate, and the residue of cases now remaining will prove the starting point of another outbreak which will cost the State heavily in lives and in industrial efficiency. Employers should require their workers to be vaccinated. Schools should require their pupils to be vaccinated. Health officials should bring this duty to the attention of school authorities and employers, and should take steps to educate the general public in the importance of vaccination. * Keep Your Address Up to Date, Mr. Soldier There are on the mailing list of the OHIO PUBLIC HEALTH JOURNAL numerous physicians and former health officers who are now in the military service and wish to keep in touch with public health developments in Ohio while they are away. The State Department of Health is glad to send the JOURNAL to these men, but wishes to call attention to the necessity for informing the Department as early as possible of their changes of address. Army men move frequently, and if the Department is not kept in touch with their changes it is impossible to be sure that the JOURNAL will reach them regularly. When you receive orders to move, send a notice to the Department at once, giving both your old and your new address. Three More Members The most recent contributions of the State Department of Health to war service are these members of the staff: Dr. R. P. Albaugh, director of the Division of Industrial Hygiene; Miss Sara Kerr, statistician in the Division of Communicable Diseases, and E. G. Will, assistant chemist in the Division of Laboratories. Dr. Albaugh has taken up work with the United States Public Health Service as director of an industrial hygiene field unit, having charge of health work in a group of manufacturing plants producing war materials. Miss Kerr is engaged in statistical work with the American Red Cross in France. Mr. Will has received a commission as second lieutenant in the Sanitary Corps of the United States Army and has been assigned to duty at Yale University. In adding these new names to the honor roll the Department expresses its gratification that it has been permitted to give such service as it has been able to give in the winning of the war. Government Finances Venereal Disease Work in F Ohio EDERAL funds amounting to $51,832.16 have been placed at the disposal of the State of Ohio for venereal disease preventive activities in the State. This money is Ohio's share of the appropriation of $1,000,000 recently granted by Congress to the United States Public Health Service for venereal disease work. Funds have been assigned to the states in proportion to relative. populations. The venereal disease campaign in Ohio will continue as before under the joint direction of the Public Health Service and the State Department of Health, with Dr. H. N. Cole as director of the Department's Bureau of Venereal Diseases and acting assistant surgeon in the Public Health Service. The offices of the Bureau are at Cleveland. No great changes in program will be brought about by the new arrangements for financing the work, but extensions are now possible which could not be made before because of the lack of State funds for the campaign. Dr. J. M. Shapiro has been employed as assistant to Dr. Cole. The budget of the Bureau of Venereal Diseases apportions ten percent of the allotment to administration (salaries and traveling expenses of officials, clerk hire and incidentals), sixty percent to treatment (salaries of physicians and nurses, clinic equipment, arsphenamine and other drugs, etc.), ten percent to repression (salaries, expenses, costs of prosecutions and investigations, etc.), twenty percent to education (printed matter, films and lectures). LABOR TAKES STAND FOR HEALTH The Ohio State Federation of Labor, in session at Columbus last month, adopted the following resolution: RESOLUTION NO. 69 WHEREAS, No subject is of more general interest than the health of the people, the Ohio State Federation of Labor cannot too strongly insist upon building up every power for good health. The known experience of all laboring men has been that the burden of unfavorable conditions falls heavily on those least able to bear it. With this condition in mind, we think the time has come to take a definite stand on several questions of very general interest. RESOLVED, I. We favor continuous investigation, research and study of problems of industrial sanitation, and measures to eliminate, so far as possible, occupational diseases. 2. We favor measures that will protect the public from the spread of venereal diseases, including treatment of victims in such manner as to prevent the infection of other members of the community. 3. We favor health supervision of all public and private schools to the end that defects of children may be corrected if necessary at public expense, at the time when they can be corrected. We favor extension of the facilities for expectant 4. mothers, education and prenatal care for them and instruction to mothers of children not yet of school age. 5. We favor the reorganization of the local health agencies of the State so that the workers in the smaller centers of population may secure the services of health departments equal to the best of those now at work in the cities. Unanimously adopted, Friday, October 18, 1918. |