HEALTH OF TOWNS. Soon after the expiration of the period for which the Board is required to make its first report, the four months ending Sept. 30, 1886,- a list of correspondents was selected from the cities and towns of the State, consisting of physicians, who were believed to be conversant with the sanitary condition of the municipalities which they represented. In the case of many towns where there was no resident physician, one correspondent was selected for several towns. Circulars were issued, and sent to these correspondents, embracing inquiries upon the following topics: 1. Prevalence of certain infectious diseases during the quarter ending Sept. 30, 1886, as follows: Small-pox, measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria and croup, typhoid fever, consumption, acute lung diseases, diarrhoeal diseases and malarial fevers (special information being requested upon the latter). 2. Methods of dealing with contagious diseases. 3. Extent of enforcement of the laws relative to vaccination. 4. Enforcement of statutes relative to the reporting of infectious diseases. 5. Pollution of water supplies and inland streams. 6. Other matters relative to public health, guch as school and industrial hygiene, offensive trades and other matters pertaining to the work of local boards of health. The number of correspondents who replied to these circulars was 177, representing about 200 cities and towns. For the sake of brevity, the replies relating to a portion of the inquiries are herewith summarized, and those relative to malarial fever are grouped together for the sake of comparison. Of the 177 correspondents, 119 state that the statutes relative to vaccination are enforced in the cities and towns which they represent, and 58 state that they are either neglected or but partially enforced. Regulations for controlling the spread of contagious diseases have been adopted in 130 towns. These include compliance with the provisions of the statutes of 1884, chapter 98. (In addition to the provisions of the older statutes, this act provided for the disinfection of apartments, under the direction or approval of the local Board, the keeping of records of reported cases of contagious disease and the notification of the school committee.) A notable feature in the reports of correspondents is the prevalence of malarial fever during 1886. Until 1877 or 1878, malarial diseases had for many years been almost unknown in Massachusetts. The history of its progress in this State, and especially in the valleys of the Housatonic and the Connecticut Rivers, is related by Dr. J. F. A. Adams of Pittsfield in the supplement to the Second Annual Report of the State Board of Health, Lunacy and Charity. The counties which were visited by the disease were, for the most part, Berkshire, Hampden and Hampshire. In some towns and cities, as at Lenox, Great Barrington, Sheffield, Springfield, Holyoke, Northampton and Hadley, the disease became epidemic in 1879 and 1880. Of the few cases which have been reported in non-epidemic years, the victims were, quite commonly, persons who had previously contracted the disease in districts well known as malarious, either in the Western or Southern States, during longer or shorter sojourns in such places, as was the case with many of the men who served as soldiers in the civil war of 1861-1865. From 1880 to 1884 there was a gradual decrease throughout these regions in the severity of the disease and the number of persons attacked by it, and in 1884 it had nearly disappeared from many of the towns where it had been quite prevalent in the years immediately preceding. In 1885 the disease suddenly made its appearance in a portion of the State where it had hitherto been unknown. In a limited region lying on both sides of the Boston & Albany Railroad in South Framingham several cases were first noticed in July, 1885, these being followed by others at Framingham, and also by scattered cases in a few of the neighboring towns. So far as could be learned, the number of cases which occurred in the summer of 1885, at and near Framingham, was about 200.* In the following year the disease again made its appearance at Framingham in a more general manner, the number of cases reported by our correspondent being about 400. From South Framingham, it spread along the course of the small stream known as Beaver Dam Brook, to Natick, at which place about 100 cases are reported by the local Board as having occurred in 1885. The following list of towns will show the prevalence of malarial fevers in 1886 as reported by the correspondents of the Board: * See Report on Malaria in Eastern Massachusetts by Dr. Z. B. Adams, Supplement to Seventh Annual Report of State Board of Health, Lunacy and Charity page 3. |