WIDEN APPLICATION

OF OHIO "LEAD LAW" An extension of the scope of the Ohio "Lead Law" (G. C. Sec. 6330-1 to -12) as enforced by the division of industrial hygiene of. the State Department of Health, has recently been made. The law as now construed by the division, upon the advice of the Commissioner of Health, is taken to apply to all manufacturers of any of the products listed in Section 2 of the law. Heretofore it had been considered applicable to manufacturers of white lead only.

The products listed in Section 2 are, in addition to white lead: red lead, litharge, sugar of lead, arsenate of lead, lead chromate, lead sulphate, lead nitrate and fluo-silicate. Every work or process in the manufacture of these is declared by the law to be especially dangerous, and safeguards for the health of workers, which must be provided by employers, are speci

fied. These include various safety devices and provisions to promote personal cleanliness among employees.

Investigations by the division of industrial hygiene during November disclosed a considerable need for the carrying out of the provisions of the law among manufacturers of other products than white lead. Such manufacturers are being directed to take action in compliance with the law.

MOTOR EXHAUST-GAS

CLAIMS A VICTIM Garage-gas poisoning again! It made one of its frequent reappearances in the newspapers early in December, when an account was published of the death of Nat Wills, well-known comedian, who was overcome and killed by carbon monoxide when he went to his garage to get out his car for a ride.

Protecting Cleveland Babies

Dr. R. B. Boldt, head of the bureau of child hygiene in the Cleveland health department, has been fighting vigorously recently to protect the babies of the Sixth City from the dangers of scarcity and high prices of food. He is making a strenuous effort to get enough sugar to keep up a steady supply for distribution from the city babies' dispensaries to mothers and has issued an emphatic warning of the rise in the baby death rate which accompanies a rise in milk prices.

Sugar, necessary for modifying cow's milk to make it like mother's milk, is being distributed in quantities of about one-half pound a week, at ten cents a pound, under strict supervision to insure that babies alone get the benefit of it. On the milk situation, Boldt's figures show that in August, when Cleveland milk prices went up, the number of deaths of babies shot up to a point 80 per cent higher than in August, 1916.

* * *

Health Board Bankrupt Youngstown's health department is "broke." It can't pay its bills and merchants have refused it further credit. Members of the board declare that appropriations made. by council have been insufficient to meet the running expenses of the department. The total indebtedness to January 1, 1918, is estimated at $1,200. Council will be asked to provide more money for the coming year.

The comment of the Youngs

town Telegram on the situation follows:

Once again the city board of health is in deep financial woe. Merely being in financial trouble cannot worry the board much since it has never known the day of adequate monetary assistance but it is again without any funds at all and even without credit until it gets some funds. With its 1916 blls unpaid no one welcomes any of its further ac

counts.

The board of health has been a sort of orphan. It has had to struggle along with only the most beggarly of appropriations. Yet there is no department in Youngstown whose success is more necessary, whose work is more vital to the city or whose members do more with so little return. It is a volunteer

job and apparently even a thankless one.

This is an unfortunate and absolutely wrong situation. Attention has been directed to it many times but apparently without result. It should be remedied once and for all.

* * *

Found Health Center The Cincinnati health department has established a health center in the Nineteenth ward of the city, with headquarters in a schoolhouse in the ward. The center was founded with the idea of carrying out a program which includes:

Pre-natal care and education of expectant mothers; infant welfare center on a full-time basis; examination of children of pre-school age; school medical examination and intensive follow-up work; establishment of health leagues in each of the three schools in the district; Junior Red Cross work, including elementary hygiene, home care of the sick and first aid; better housing and improvement of community sanitary conditions; frequent inspection and

rating of bakeshops, dairymen, groceries, restaurants, barbershops, etc.; establishment of a community bulletin; establishment of a night clinic for working men, if there is need for such service.

* * *

Conservation of Value

State health statistics for 1916, just issued, shows that 20.9 per cent of all deaths in Lorain county were among infants less than one year of age.

The percentage is too large, it is readily agreed. But the method of reducing the toll is the problem that confronts every clean-minded, conscientious citizen.

Baby deaths are largely due to ignorance. A majority of the tiny lives would be spared if the knowledge of proper care was at hand. Superstitions and antiquated methods of care are leading factors in the making of the big death rate.

What can be done to combat the evil? There is but one cure—education-the finding out of prospective mothers and carrying to them the message of proper baby Lorain Herald.

care.

* * *

Plan Change in Dayton Amendment of the Dayton city charter to provide for the separation of the health and welfare departments of the city government has been proposed. Physicians of the city are the chief backers of the proposal. They say there is no direct relationship between the health. and welfare activities of the city, and that the official connection tends to handicap both.

*

Commissioner Names Health
Officer

Dr. Carl Dewey has been appointed city health officer of Conneaut by Dr. A. W. Freeman, State