Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 September 1907 — VACATIONISTS IMPORT TYPHOID [ARTICLE]

VACATIONISTS IMPORT TYPHOID

Physicians Declare Them Responsible for Spreading Disease. If Chicago people had stayed at home during their vacations this summer and drank good lake water, the health department would not be coping with nearly 200 cases of typhoid, as is the case at present. This is the conclusion of the health officers, who have made an exhaustive investigation of the situation. They womUred what was causing so much typhoid, as the city itself is healthy enough. Calling for facts from attending physicians. the guardians of Chicago’s sanitary welfare found that 51.9 per cent of the total number of typhoid were contracted outside the city. This figuring was made on the basis of known cases. There may be many other caste in the city for all the Board of Health knows, as a number of otherwise careful doctors have a habit of keeping the news to themselves when they are treating a disease which should be reported to the department.' The number of typhoid cases directly traceable to the outside vacation habit is much larger than last year, when the percentage was placed at 33. The "beautiful sparkling spring water” which many a resort prospectus tells ■bout is good enough to swim in, but the Chicago health department would advise the seeker after country joys to take along a cask of the real thing taken from Lake Michigan for drinking purposes. The doctors think some way that a man is more apt to take typhoid when traveling than when at home attending to his business. They do not wish to be understood as "knocking” on the vacation habit, of course. They merely want to warn peo-' pie so that vacations may be taken on an intelligent basis.