Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1885-06-28
WESTON.
Deplorable Condition of ~Jails-Goods Hints
About Health.

Deplorable Condition of Jails-Goods Hints
About Health.
Special COrrespoRdence Of TIE Sunday Register.
WESTON, June 26.-Your correspondent
wishes to call the attention of the State
Board of Health" to the d~eplorsble condi-
ton of the county jails. Out of a number
recently under observation not one is kept
even with reference to the most foreign
principles Of decency.
Should cholera, typhoid or any conta-
gious or infectious disease visit our county
seats every inmate (many of them lunatics)
would undoubtedly die unless steps were
taken 10 render the jsils more decent.
Every local Board OF Health should be wide
awake. Not for prevention of disease alone
should this be done, but for the sake of
humanity, should it be looked after. Every
taller should be made to have decency if he
is such q brute as not to have it. Some Of
the jsils are nothing to compare in decency
to the worst wards in city hospitals or in
sane asylums. 1t is next to miraculous
that q prisoner lives from one term of court
to another, retaining his health, or q lunstic
comes to the hospital in any other than an
emaciated condition. Let the County
Boards of Health and all the medical fra
terpity 60 70 work.
Civil organizations can scarcely be
blamed for delay in recognizing health
bureaus as an important and necessary part
of their organization, since medical insttu.
tons have been tardy in ~elevsting the chair
of Hygiene into q first place in their
faculty.
Medical men should be regarded as
health protectors IS well as health restorers,
and can they confer a greater boon upon
humanity than BY becoming the leaders in
such a cause? Certainly not, for disease is
the parent of crime as it is itself the child
of the unelesn.
This is a hideous truth. The prisoner
who loses bis life in Jail from a p~revents-
BILE disease is murdered BY his Indifferent
keeper. In fact some of the jails as they
are, are living charnels. As ignorance of
law..dOes not protect its criminal violationH
why should ignorance Of sanitary laws be
any less to reprehensible?
1.-THE prime conditions of health in a house
depend upon cleanliness, pure air, unpol.
luted water and nutritious food; the
prompt removal of ali refuse;
and the perfect exclusion of all matter
arising outside of the house. Jealous and
constant attention must be paid to cellars,
pan'ries, passages, yards, outbuildings, 80
as to prevent the accumulation of filth, gar
bage or masse s ofdecomposing organic mat
ter, which sre so prejudicial to health.
Mould, dsppness and foul smells are never
TO te Neglected, ever for a few hours. A
bad smell is natures warning of danger.
Eternal vigilance in these matters is the
price of health in the family.
Tie people need to be taught that "pre-
ven ion is better than cure and far cheaper"
that it is much better to so live that disin-
feetsnis will not be needed, than to be care
less Of refuse matter, of pure water, Of ven.
t~ilation, Of cleanliness, Of house, of yard and
of person, and then strive by means of
chemicals to purify great masses Of filth in
the house and its surroundings. Again, let
the medical profession awaken, for those
poor u~nfortunstes deserve something better
than imprisonment of the Dark Ages" or
half civilized, even if they be criminals.
OBSERVER.