Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 240, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 October 1915 — HYPHOID HITS MANY [ARTICLE]

HYPHOID HITS MANY

Public Health Service Warns Cities and Individuals. is, **** . Two Hundred Thousand People Contract Disease During Year, of Whom 18,000 Die—Filth, Bad Food and Flies the Cause. Washington.—During the year probably 200,000 people in the United States will contract typhoid fever, says a statement issued by the public health service. The average period of invalidism will be more than a month for every case, so that the economic loss, even if recovery does ensue, can be reckoned upon this basis, including the care and attention required. Of those who contract the disease possibly 18,000 will die. Fifty per cent of these will be between the ages of fifteen and thirtyfive years, the very time of life when the loss is most frightful. Moreover, this is an annual toll and represents the minimum fatality which we have attained. No sooner is the computation of the 18,000 completed than another series is begun and so on interminably. The weather, presence of .flies, contamination of food products and the Increased liability of Infection through changes of residence makes it once more necessary for health bodies to sound a warning note. Typhoid fever is a disease of filth. It can only be contracted by taking into the system the waste products of one previously ill of the disease. These waste products are conveyed from one individual to another usually by means of a third object, such as water, flies or milk. Even if disease itself were never contracted in this manner we should revolt with abhbrrence at the idea of such uncleanliness. For every'case of the infection developing, someone, either the municipality or the individual, has been careless, and public ◦pinion will soon regard such carelessness as criminal. In the. eyes of the health officer typhoid fever is strictly a preventable disease. For 30 years the causative organism has been known and studied. For nearly twenty years science has been in possession of most delicate blood tests for the recognition of the disease. Knowledge of the dissemination of the disease is consequently exact and definite.

Not content with accomplishments along these lines, the medical profession have even devised methods by which the public may live under unsanitary conditions with perfect impunity, so far as this particular disease is concerned. Persons may take into their systems the filth which produces disease and death and yet remain free from harmful effects if the preventive treatment has been received. In spite of these efforts the frightful mortality continues. A large proportion of the population is ignoring the principles which have been so well established. Further steps toward the prevention of typhoid must be the result of more general enlightenment of the mass of the people. The avoidance of the infection rests primarily upon community action. The proper protection of water supplies, th a eradication of filth and all its accompaniments, the regulation of dairies and the safeguarding of milk are all problems which only communities as a whole can settle. Nevertheless, this does not absolve the individual citizen from responsibility, and he can do much for his own protection. The eradication of filth is in part the duty of every citizen, and each should see that his own surroundings are in a satisfactory condition. He should guard against carelessness in the maintenance and preparation of food and withhold his patronage from those who disregard the rules of cleanliness, remembering that the foods which are most subject to contamination are milk and its products, also oysters and vegetables. The role of flies in the dissemination of the infection is now generally recognized. The elimination of •uch fly-breeding places as garbage.

manure and filth is most essential, but the proper screening of houses and the adoption of destructive measures are also of great value. If, in spite of these precautions, the disease develops, it then becomes the duty of every citizen to implicitly follow the instructions given in order that the safety of others may not be imperiled, bearing in mind the fact that every case of typhoid / fever is due to someone’s ignorance or carelessness. No higher duty of citizenship than this can be conceived.