Public Summer Resorts.

Rule 6. The transit permits must be made with a stub to be retained by the person issuing it, the original permit must accompany the body to destination, and two coupons; the first conpon to be detached by agent at initial point and sent to the general baggage agent, and the second coupon, by the last train baggageman. The stub, permit and coupons, must be numbered so the one will refer to the other, and on back of permit will be a space for undertaker's affidavit, to be used in cases of contagious or infectious diseases as required by rules 2 and 3.

Rule 7. The box containing corpse must be plainly marked with paster, showing name of deceased, place of death, cause of death, the point to which it is to be shipped, number of transit permit issued in connection, and name of person in charge of the remains. There must also be blank spaces at bottom of paster for station agent at inital point, to fill in the form and number of passage ticket, where from, where to, and route to destination of such ticket.

Rule 8. It is intended that no dead body shall be moved which may be the means of spreading disease, therefore, all disinterred bodies, dead from any disease or cause, will be treated as infectious and dangerous to the public health, and will not be accepted for transportation unless said removal has been approved by the State Board of Health, and the consent of the health authority of the locality to which the corpse is consigned, has been first obtained, and the disinterred remains inclosed in a hermetically sealed (soldered) zinc, tin, or copper-lined coffin or box, or box encased in hermetically sealed (soldered) zinc, tin, or copper cases.

The Iowa State Board of health has already once approved these rules, and is in full accord with the movement already inaugurated, being satisfied that any system, to be national in operation, must come from the railroad managers of the country, who are directly interested in protecting their train-men and property from infection.

PUBLIC SUMMER RESORTS.

No custom is growing more upon our people than the one of spending a Summer vacation in travel and rest (?) at some popular Summer resort. It is questionable whether what is undertaken, as a means of rest and recuperation, does not too often become an occasion of unrest and real danger. The great majority go to some

Public Summer Resorts.

crowded place, the more popular, and hence more liberally patronized, the better. There is a whirl of excitement, and a round of pleasure from morning until late at night. The "society" man and woman have exacting and exhausting demands made upon them, and the quiet and retiring man and woman meet with unnumbered and innumerable annoyances. Both return home tired, "done out," unrested, unsatisfied, depleted in nervous force and in purse. It is a striking exemplification of the implicit trust of man in his brother man, a prophecy of the time when all will recognize the universal brotherhood of man, to see the way in which such pleasure seekers submit themselves to the accommodations afforded at such places. The food is eaten without any question as to healthfulness, quality, source or manner of cooking; the most outlandish milk, tea and coffee, with meat too often musty and mellow, may be served; the rooms may be never so poorly ventilated and miserably plumbed; the beds may be occupied without proper ventilation or disinfection by different persons with different affections, and yet the visitor meekly endures and has an abiding trust in the care and brotherly regard of his landlord. The most rickety boats are trusted with human freight upon the lakes, and yet the same confiding trust rests as a benediction upon these pleasure (?) seekers. Few of these Summer resorts, especially the later ones, have adequate means for disposing of the sewage and garbage that accumulate. Human excreta pollute the soil, the air is too often redolent with the most unsavory odors, the water is bad from soil pollution, and too often disease germs are developing in the system to prostrate the visitor with some infectious disease soon after his return to his home.

One of the things the last legislature had its attention called to, was the importance of our Summer resorts being placed under some inspection as to their healthfulness, the disposal of garbage, sew-age, etc., and also with reference to the safety of the boats used on our inland waters. The legislators, in their great wisdom or otherwise, the Senate excepted, paid no attention to it.

There is probably not a health resort in the State of Iowa where any provision is made for the proper disposal of sewage, garbage,

Public Summer Resorts.

etc. The State Board of Health, or some other board of official health authority should have cognizance of all such places, and should be vested with authority to require either the removal of all causes endangering the lives and health of those resorting thither, or else to prevent their being advertised and used as health resorts, or pleasure resorts.

Dr. Cyrus Edson, of the Health Department of the city of New York, graphically describes the dangers arising from neglect of sanitary precautions, so universally practiced at Summer health

resorts:

The following is what Dr. Edson says:

The water supply of the Summer resorts in this country is almost invariably as bad as can be. The most attractive watering place is often but a dangerous guest-trap baited with alluring scenery, fresh air, fishing, boating and other things attractive to its game.

During the months of June and July I visited eight popular resorts. All were supplied with water from dug or driven wells, and the drainage was uncared for so far as preventing contamination of the wells was concerned. At one place nearly all the guests were found to be suffering from Diarrhea. The water here was from a driven well under the house, and only twentythree feet distant from a source of soil contamination.

Another place, a large town, very closely settled, was found to be exclusively supplied by means of wells about eighteen feet deep. Sewerage there was none. One of the oldest inhabitants boasted of the perfect way in which the sand swallowed up cess-pool and vault contents. 'They never have to be emptied,' he said. No wonder,' I replied, 'that your water supply never fails.'

An analysis of water from two wells in this town showed the grossest contamination. The unacclimated, or rather the unacquainted, visitor from the city after a few days in such a town wonders 'what ails his bowels.' It is not much of a mystery to experts or diagnosticians.

What would be the consequence, think you, if a few Cholera bacilli should find their way into towns such as this?

Well, if we are expected to answer, we should say the place would be apt to lose some reputation as a Summer health" resort.

66

In June, 1880, a case of Small-pox appeared at one of the most attractive Summer resorts in this State. Though there was but a single case, and successful measures were adopted to prevent any spread of the disease, the entire community at once became excited and alarmed, and a rapid exodus followed, and a depopulation of

Intramural Cemeteries.

the locality would have resulted, but for extraordinary measures adopted to restore public confidence and assurance, of all absence of danger. Yet in the environments of nearly, if not all these Summer resorts, lurks the virus of a disease, tenfold more to be dreaded, and more insidious, because unseen, than Small-pox; against which there is no prophylaxis; and from the ravages of which the only safety is in prevention.

INTRAMURAL CEMETERIES.

"To bury a dead body, whether known before or not, is a debt I owe humanity," said Senaca, an eminent philosopher of the Silver Age, and counselor of Nero. Where the dead shall be

buried is a vital question to the living.

In 1552, Bishop Latimer warned the people of London that intramural burials were dangerous to health.

In 1810, Adam Clarke, in his Commentary on the Bible, says: "No burying place should be tolerated within cities or towns, much less in or about churches and chapels."

Lapse of time has not changed the correctness of these opinions. The advancement of sanitary science has confirmed and intensified them.

"Every one knows," says Vicq. Dazyr, "that animal exhalations, particularly from a putrifying carcass, are very noxious and dangerous. Were we to collect together all the observations of those who have gone before us, we should find proofs without number of the deadly effects of interments in towns, and to which may be attributed the epidemics which have from time to time depopuated our cities."

In 1843, in Minchinhampton, England, in rebuilding a church, it was necessary to remove a portion of the surface of the earth of the graveyard that surrounded the building, to within a foot or two

Intramural Cemeteries.

of the level of the buried bodies. The removed earth was spread on adjacent fields, on the rector's garden, and a gardener's grounds, for fertilizing purposes. This diffusion of a morbid poison was

soon followed by unusual sickness in this previous healthy locality. The rector's wife, daughter and a servant died; the gardener died; the children who passed the upturned graveyard died. Seventeen deaths occurred, and nearly two hundred children had Measles, Scarlet Fever and various diseases, traced to the exhalation from this poisoned graveyard soil.

The effect of the introduction of decomposing and prutrescent animal matter into living tissues, and its capacity to produce fatal disease is too well established to be questioned. It is also equally well established that this morbid matter, when diffused in the atmosphere, can be conveyed into the system by respiration. The energy with which poisons act upon the system, when brought in contact with the lungs, is evidenced by the fact that a single inspiration of the concentrated prussic acid is capable of causing death as quickly as a stroke of lightning.

In addition to the danger of poisoning from graveyards, through the atmosphere, there is another and more formidable danger, from the pollution of wells and sources of water supply, because more insidious. Says Dr. Copeland: "It is fully ascertained that soil that receives the exuviæ of animal matter, or the bodies of dead animals, will become rich in general, and the water that percolates through the soil thus enriched will become injurious to the health of those who use it."

Dr. Chadwick, in his report to the British Parliament, after a thorough investigation of intramural burial, said: "There is no case in which the liability to danger should be incurred by interment amidst the dwellings of the living."

In France the opening of a well within one hundred metres (three hundred and twenty-seven feet) of any place of burial is prohibited. In Germany the prohibition extends to three hundred feet. By the public health act of England, cemeteries cannot be located within two hundred yards of a dwelling-house. The minimum distance in France is one hundred and nine yards, and no