McCook weekly tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 188?-1886, 1884-04-10
The Germs of Fever.
3 Health Monthly.

DIR. Foote'S Health Monthly.
Although we shall doubtless see
many snowfakes to remind us of win
ter, the date of this paper carries us to
the second month in spring. In one
month more we shall have summer.
On several occasions we nave spoken to
our readers through the Health Month
ly of the dangers arising from neglect
ed cess-pools.. These cess pools are
especially dangerous in warm weather,
as warmth is favorable to the germina-
ton of unwholesome bacteria when
there are any impurities about to pro-
mote its multiplication. We are again
reminded of the Importance of this
matter by an article in the Nineteenth
Century by DIR. B. w. Carpenter. He
speaks of a house wherein last year
four members of the family were at
tackled with typhoid fever, one mar
rowly escaping death. The house was
well situated, standing by itself in a
most salubrious situation. The most
thorough examination disclosed no de-
feet in its drainage or water supply,
nor was there any typhoid fever in the
neighborhood. 1t was found, however,
that an offensive odor emanated from
a partially uncovered cess-pool in an
adjoining garden connected with prem
Uses which had been occupied for school
purposes. Circumstances were such as
to admit of no reasonable question but
that the germs of the fever had arisen
from this cess-pool. DIR. Carpenter
concludes that while the breeding
ground of ordinary malarious germs is
IL he earth alone, and the germs of
some other diseases may be in the wa
ter alone, that there is an intermediate
class producing cholera, typhoid fever,
yellow fever and perhaps some other
forms of fever which may thrive in the
human body, or in the earth, or in
water having the necessary impurities
to invite their visitation and fructifca-
ton.
These disclosures made from time
to time by scientific men who are q w.
ing much time to sanitary science nat
urally lead one TO inquire how long
the privy vaults of farm houses and
those sometimes in closely packed vii
lagos may 60 without attention and
at the same time without filling the
neighborhood with the germs of dis.
ease. Where the soil is leachy and
there is quick absorption of the i'm
purities of the excrementitious matter
there may, perhaps, be no danger
whatever arising from neglected privy
vaults. But where the soil is hard and
clay-ike, or where it is rocky, or
where, as in some cases the vaults are
made water-tight by cement of some
kind, it seems evident that there should
be a frequent clearing out of such
places or else the substitution of some
such invention as the earth closet. 1t
is a question in our mind whether the
earth closet is not the proper thing to
be used where it is impossible to have
connection with public sewers, as in
large cities. By the use of the earth
closet the discharges are at once COW
cred and at once intermingled with
dry absorptive earth which practically
disinfects at once. This earth can be
removed as often as necessary and
new dry earth substituted: That
which is borne away is perhaps as
valuable for compost purposes as many
ofthose compounds which arefurnished
for this purpose, shipped great dis
tances and carried by vehicles to the
garden or farm. Would it not, then,
be well for those who are fully abreast
with sanitary progress to look into
this matter and see if some of the
many earth closets now made may
not furnish o way out of what seems
ike troublesome difficulty?