Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1890-10-10
HEALTH OFFICERS REPORT
OF City of Wheeling for Quarter Ending
September 80, 1890.

The value of vital statistics and health
reports results from and depends on their
popular circulation. Evidences of this
have already begun to multiply in this
community, as shown by the increased in
terest of our citizens in all sanitary ques-
tons.
Hitherto, it has been supposed that NOR
tuary reports were valuable only as guild
ing information for health officers. santa
rians, legislators and economists But the
intimate relation of local health to local
prosperity is instantly revealed to any COM
munitv, with the most stimulating effect
upon every citizen, the moment that COM
parative statistics, showing the proportion
Immortality TO population in every place,
begin TO be publicly circulated all over the
country. Such publication arouses local
pride and interest to enforce the sanitary
laws with zeal, and to support progressive
legislation and sanitary public improve
ments The aid to be thus afforded TO
health officers, physicians and santarians
in their work is simply immense. The
bringing home thus TO every citizens
pocket of the pecuniary damage incurred
by toleratng unsanitary conditions, and OF
the large profits 10 be returned to all prop
erty for every expenditure that will reduce
the local death rate, is going to create a
general competition everywhere for the
most favorable showing in the tables of
vital statistics, and will thus accomplish
more for sanitary progress and reform in
the next ten years than sanitary preach
ing could effect in century
While il is true that considerable inter
est has already been created in this city
upon the important questions of public
hygiene, there remains much TO be done in
that direction.
There are people in this community as in
every community, who are heartily in favor
Of sanitary reform, and there are others
who VIII tell you that there is nothing in
all this talk about bad water and dirty
streets as factor in our heavy death rate,
and will offer as an argument in favor OF
such a statement that they have lived here
and drank the water complained of and en-
dured the same foul smells for n quarter
of century or more, without paying the
penalty with their lives. There are others
who think sanitary science is good thing
and has done much good, but it has dis
seminated much nOnsense-peOple VINO be-
lieve that if half that has been written Of
the danger in unsOund provisions, meat,
milk and water were the truth.
there would be no further need for
agitation and that all the people would
have been dead long ago. No doubt, 10
people who have never noticed the differ
erence between the aggregate Of danger
and the average Of danger, the theory that
every thing is full of germs Of fatality
seems incompatible with the fact that peO-
pie continue TO live. If certain public per
sons. who are responsible for the mainte-
nance Of impure systems Of sewerage, water
supply, and other public nuisances, could
be made TO feel the public danger as a per-
Il
selves, the most of them would stir about
10 remedy such evils But so long as only
about ten persons in a thousand or fifty
thousand in all our vast land. are slaught-
cred every year by the filth in water, earth
and air, the danger does not seem very
near 10 any one in particular, and there
fore 10 wiseacres the evil seems TO be
grealy eXaggerated-simply because they
do not think They are quite content to
take their chances with the 49,950,0O0 peo-
pie who live out the year or die from una
voidable causes, and who cares
for the trihe of the odd So
600. But what would be thought
If our railroads killed $1,000 passengers
annually, year after year! Would there be
no great danger, and no great need Of re
form. in that matter. Nor is such the
worst practical aspect of the matter. What
II Ont-lllIu VI Olt-AltlA VI Allu NNAi
killed, sooner or later, by railroad ac-
cidents. That would furnish a true paral-
lei to the fact about zymotic diseases.
which complete sanitary reform would
abolish. That which is written on these
subjects-not the half, but the whole of it
and more,-is scientific truth, and can not
be rallied out Of pathology, chemistry and
biology by the the shallow inference that
nobody could continue TO live il every
body were in danger. Military statistics
show that it takes several hundred musket
shots 10 kill one soldier in battle That is
the average of danger. But the fact is,
also, that one shot is enough TO kill a
soldier when il hits him. That is what may
happen to any one. The grand fact, how
ever. is that hundreds or thousands will GER
tainly be killed in every engagement OF any
consequence. That is the aggregate OF
danger, corresponding to the aggregate OF
danger from our infected water earth, air,
milk. etc. The mental popularity that
makes a man a sanitarian, is to care some
thing for the needless deaths of fifty
Thousand fcllOw-men, even though they
take place in fifty thousand places and IN
800 days 1t is not expected or desired tC
make individuals look for death in every
drink of unpurified water or breath of fou
air. Sanitary science in its most appalling
revelations, suggests no such thing, seeks
no such thing. 1t seeks 10 interest indi
viduals in the danger and in the protection
of the aggregate population, TO whom these
avoidable public evils mean fifty thou
sand deaths year, though one of them
may probably not be yours. or mine, OF
| his Since the first day of January, 1890
there have occurred in this city, total OF
III deaths, PA of which were from pre-
| tnhle disenses distribntcd as follows: