Report

this disease can detail one or more instances in which the disease has been clearly traced to infected water, and I will consider that this method of the dissemination of the disease is recognized by all. Some physicians will tell you that every case of typhoid fever is due to impure drinking water. I will not be so positive and will repeat that most cases are due to this cause. It probably is a safe estimate to say that bad drinking water causes forty thousand deaths every year in this country. "Actually," some one is ready to ask, "can this be true? Is our drinking water so frequently and so dangerously contaminated?"

We read that some of the inhabitants of India store their water-supply during the rainy season in open tanks and that during the dry season these tanks not only supply the drinking water but they serve as laundry and bath tubs as well. Dirty clothing and unclean bodies are washed in the same water which serves to quench their thirst. Yet this is true; but then these people are not the enlightened Christians which we claim to be. The official organ of the Imperial board of health of Germany calmly explains the outbreak of cholera at Hamburg last August in the following

manner:

The plague is most probably due to emigrants from Russia in this manner: The barracks used for the accommodation of these emigrants discharge their sewage, containing the waste from the laundry and the undisinfected fæces, into the Elbe near the intake of the water-supply for the city."

In other words, the people of Hamburg have for years been drinking the diluted excretions of the emigrants who have been housed in these barracks awaiting their departure for America. Surely the people of Hamburg cannot boast of their superiority over the heathen Hindoo.

But certainly we do better in this country. A few years ago the discharges from the body of a man sick with typhoid-fever were thrown upon the snow on the banks of the

stream supplying water to the city of Plymouth, Pa., and hundreds of cases of typhoid-fever resulted. Louisville drinks the diluted sewage of Cincinnati and other small cities, and pays for the privilege with a high death-rate from typhoid-fever. Chicago pours a part of her sewage into the same basin from which it takes its drinking water, and complains because the physicians report so many cases of typhoid-fever. The Iowa farmer with his many broad and fertile acres often locates privy vaults, cess-pools, pig-pens, and wells in close proximity, and demonstrates that he is not to be outdone by the inhabitant of the city in the amount of patronage which he bestows upon the undertaker. Men and women who would not sit at a table covered with a soiled cloth, drink from costly glasses the diluted discharges of some sick man. It is not pleasant to recite these details, but no one can deny their truth and with shame we must admit that we should not regard the Hindo as exceptionally filthy.

One must recognize his own faults, before he is likely to make any attempt to improve himself. If there were no way of remedying these grievous sins I would not have. come here to talk to you to-night. I am sure that I could have chosen a topic which I could have discussed with more pleasure and which would have been more pleasant for you to hear. But believing as I do that the sanitarian has a gospel to preach second only to that of him who administers to man's moral nature, I have come here to urge upon each of you the necessity of your taking an active interest in these matters.

Like charity and all other good things your activity in sanitation should begin at home. See to it that cellars, back-yards, and out-houses are clean. If there be any doubt about the plumbing in your house being in perfect order, call in a competent man and remedy any defects which he may detect. If there be any suspicion in regard to the water-supply, boil the water which you drink. On the

whole, I think it best to boil the water anyhow, and then you may investigate its character afterward. Germs are more easily digested after they have been well cooked. See to the ventilation of your house. Do not take air from the cellar, heat it and bring it into the rooms for the inmates to breathe. Get the air from out-of-doors. The supply is more abundant there than elsewhere. Ascertain whether or not your milkman is diluting his milk, and if so, ask him to use sterilized water in the dilution. You may be willing to pay him seven cents per quart for water, but it is not unreasonable, if you are doing this, to ask him to inform you of the character of the water for which you are paying. After you have seen to these matters, inquire as to the work being done by your city health officer. Ascertain how much time and attention he is giving his work, and in this connection it would not be amiss to find out how much salary your city is paying him. What is the source of water-supply for your city? What are the possible sources of its contamination? It may be of great moment to you who is elected president on the 8th of November, but it is of vital interest that your family should not be compelled to drink a contaminated water.

Health and its companion, happiness, are the rewards which you may expect for the time spent in giving attention to the sanitation of your home and city.

INDEX.

Antrim, water-supply of .

Berry, Dr. John J., on milk as a vehicle for infection

report on diphtheria in Portsmouth

Blank forms for reporting certain diseases

Boards of health must enforce regulations of the state board of health
must placard houses in certain diseases.

to examine water-supplies