The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1891-11-25
DIPHTHERIA AGAIN.

During the four weeks ending last Satur-
day ninety-seven cases of diphtherla were
reported at the Health Office, twenty-seven
of which were fatal. Alarm has naturally
broken out and marked diminuti0n in the
attendance at the public schools has fol-
lowed. Parents are not willing to run the
risk of their children taking this dreadful
disease by associating with other children
who may have the seeds Of it in their system.
The Health Officer ascribes the outbreak
of the epidemic to the condition of the sew
ers, which are not flushed as the law re-
qures. The protracted dry season has left
the sewers full of miasmatic matter, which
eXhaes poisonous gases through the man.
holes and cannot fail to be source of dis
ease. Some days ago the Board of Health
drew the attention of the Supervisors to the
state of the sewers and to the law requiring
them to be flushed. The Grand Jury like
wise took the matter up and called the
Supervisors TO account. The reply of the
Supervisors was that it was not their bust
ness to flush the sewers, but the business of
the Superintendent of Streets; that he had
ample power to execute the law, and that if
he did not do so it was not their fault.
When Superintendent Gillersn was asked
by the Grand Jury why he did not do his
gangs of men at work and that he could rot
flush sewers without an outlet and without
bottoms. In other words, he confessed that
he WAS filling an Office of which he was IN
able to discharge the duties.
The public will not accept Mr.. Gilleran's
excuse. Other Street Superintendent have
managed to flush the sewers in dry seasons,
whether they have outlets or bottoms or
not With all their faults they did not keep
fever on tap at every street corner. There
are great many sewers as to whose outlet
and bottom there can be no question.
Surely these might be flushed and the
source OF disease diminished by so much.
Here are the highest authorties-the
Board Of Health, the Health Officer, and
the Grand Jury-who concur in the opinion
that the condition OF the sewers threatens
an epidemic; their opinion is confirmed by
the fact of ninety-seven cases of diphtheria
occurring within week, and tweuty-seven
of them terminating fatally; and yet, when
the proper officer is called upon to check the
cause of tie mortality by flushing the sew
ers the request is met by the excuse that
sewers have no outlet and no bottom. That
is an absurdity for which there should GER
tainly be some cure.
1t is dreadful to think that in this Chris
tan city scores of pretty little children who
might grow up to beu>eful men and women
are cut off in their infancy by disease
which is preventable. From the heights of
our lofty civilization we look Down upon the
haf-ciyilized races which. from neglect of
the laws Of hygiene, convert their homes
into breeding place for pestlence. Tray
elers never tire of telling us of the cradles
of cholera which ignorance forbids the
ASiatic from abolishing. Alas, it seems
that we are only repeating the old parable
and thanking God that we are not liks unto
that publican. We. here. in one of the
youngest and naturally the most healthy
city in the world, so administer our sewer
system that disease, which might as easily
as not be extirpated, continues year after
year to consume its regular proportion of
our youth; and when a stranger visits US
from the East or from foreign parts and we
show him round the city we are particularly
careful not 10 let him stand on a street cor
ner for fear the effluyia from the man
hole should reach his nostrils and awaken
his establishment and alarm. II would not
be conye nient to explain to him that there
is more money in laying bituminous pave
ments on streets which do not need that
improvement than there Is in flushing tie
sewers and checking the spread of diph-
tharTa