EDITORIALS-Two More Department Men Enter Service - Ohio's Death Rates and the Country's- Careful Work Needed But Hysterics Are Not New Year Resolves on School Sanitation - Nurses' Reports Needed Each Month - Garage Exhaust-Pipes Must Be Large Enough - Cleveland Also Has Scoring Plan Pulling Together for the Cause PAGE Industrial Hygiene Survey Planned for Munition Plants of Ohio.... Preliminary Figures on 1916 Mortality Are Issued By Census Bureau... How a Diphtheria Epidemic Resulted From a Nearby "Tonsillitis" Outbreak. Plans Under Way for Third District's New Tuberculosis Hospital...... How Measles and Whooping Cough Menace Ohio Babies..... Health Officer's Calendar for a Year-Duties Listed by Months.. Ohio Cities Getting Pure Water by New Filtration Systems. Illinois Health Department Also Supports War on Venereal Diseases. VOL. VIII DECEMBER, 1917 No. 12 Two More Department EDITORIALS Since the November issue of THE PUBLIC HEALTH JOURNAL appeared, giving the State Department of Health's "Honor Roll" of staff members who have enlisted for army service, two more men have donned Uncle Sam's uniform, bringing the number of stars in the department's service flag up to seven. J. F. Granger, assistant engineer in the division of sanitary engineering, has been commissioned a first lieutenant in the sanitary forces and is now in service. J. R. Russell, assistant chemist in the division of laboratories, has joined the sanitary branch of the service as an enlisted man and will see service as a chemist. Mr. Russell has been acting chief chemist for several weeks, in the absence of J. S. McCune, now a lieutenant in the army. Other men in the department are considering entering the service. and it is likely that there will be more names to be recorded when the JOURNAL goes to press the next time. As was remarked last month, each departure weakens the staff available for the heavy duties which fall upon the department, but necessary sacrifices are gladly made and everyone is willing to shoulder a little extra work to keep things moving as usual. Ohio's Death Rates and the Country's * * * Ohio's death rates from the more important diseases in 1916 show few notable variations from the rates for the entire registration area of the country, as these are presented in a preliminary report of the bureau of the census, details of which are given elsewhere in this number of THE PUBLIC HEALTH JOURNAL. Among the few important differences noted, however, the margin by which the Ohio tuberculosis rate falls below that for the country is encouraging, offering as it does evidence of tangible results in the fight which has been waged against the disease. Statistics for single years are often misleading, inasmuch as they make no allowance for differences due to unusual circumstances. In this case, however, the low tubercu losis rate is especially worth noting, when one remembers that such a rate has prevailed in Ohio for several years, and that not since 1911 has the Ohio rate been as high as the registration area's 1916 rate. Pneumonia's jump of last year, noted in last month's issue of the JOURNAL, brought its rate above the country-wide average. The inroads of this disease will be watched with interest the next few years, to ascertain the strength of the grip which it threatens to get on Ohio's population. A heavy death toll of apoplexy, as compared with the registration area figures, marked the year in Ohio. Other figures which were markedly high were those of cancer, influenzia and arterial diseases. On the other hand, Bright's disease and diarrhea and enteritis (the latter taking almost all its toll from children under two years old) dealt lightly with Ohio. Typhoid fever and diabetes were very slightly higher in Ohio than elsewhere. The childhood epidemics, whose rates fluctuate greatly, occupied their usual place in the 10 to 15 rate range of the table, with diphtheria low in Ohio and measles and whooping cough high, as compared with the rest of the country. Ohio's infantile paralysis rate, although increased over 1915, did not share in the 900 percent jump which epidemics elsewhere caused the figures for this disease to take. Careful Work Needed * * * Smallpox is on the increase in Ohio. That statement, made last month, needs to be repeated this month. The November reports of communicable diseases, published in this issue, show a smallpox total well above October's, and in addition show a much larger number of counties reporting cases. In other words, both the number of cases and the extent of the infected area are increasing. The situation calls for watchful care from health officers, but there is no need for hysterical alarm. Smallpox is a disease so easily controllable and so well understood that a widespread epidemic is unthinkable. All that is needed is thorough application of the knowledge which we have. Unfortunately such application has been absent from the methods with which many communities have met the situation. Through lack of information or through carelessness victims of smallpox have not recognized their disease or have not reported it. Wrong diagnoses and failure to enforce the quarantine regulations of the state rigidly enough have permitted the disease to spread in many cases. Compulsory vaccination, where such compulsion is possible, has not in all cases been insisted upon. Faithful, thorough co-operation of local health officers and physicians is needed and expected by the State Department of Health, and for its part it is willing to aid local health workers in every way possible. Smallpox MUST be stamped out in the state, and it CAN be stamped out if all work together, with the utmost care and determination to accomplish that result. New-Year Resolves on School Sanitation * School authorities and teachers and others charged with looking after the health of Ohio's school children might do well to read over this statement of the standards of school hygiene and sanitation which have been established by the New York City health department's bureau of child hygiene. Then if they are thinking of making any New Year's resolutions, they might incorporate one announcing their determination to strive toward this as an ideal during the coming year: Classrooms should be large enough to provide at least 300 cubic feet of air space for each pupil. Each room should have direct sunlight at some period of the school day. Each child should have an individual desk with aisles at least two feet wide between the rows. Dry sweeping and dusting must be prohibited and proper oil dressing provided for the floors. Pencils should be individual and collected at the end of each day, in separate stout manila envelopes, marked with the name of the child, so that distribution may be made each morning. Lastly and most important, adequate and free ventilation, with the provision of air at the right temperature and degree of humidity, is imperative. In the school building, cloakrooms with individual ventilated lockers, or hooks placed at wide enough intervals so that the children's outer garments shall not be in contact, are essential. The further installation of drinking fountains or the use of the individual drinking cup, the elimination of the common towel and the provision of adequate and cleanly toilet and washing facilities will all provide the needed surety of the first line of defense against the spread of infection in the schools. Nurses' Reports Needed Each Month * * * There appears in this issue of THE PUBLIC HEALTH JOURNAL a monthly report of the nursing service of the state. This report will hereafter be a regular feature of the magazine. The monthly summary is published with a view to informing the people of the state of the extent of the work which this branch of the State Department of Health is doing. |