Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-02-04
PROTECT THE CITY
Meeting of Citizens to Consider
Typhoid Danger.
STRONG EXPOSE OF CONDITIONS
A Committee to Visit Congress and
Urge Relief.
IMPURE WATER, BAD SEWERS

The banquet hall of the Shoreham Satur-
day afternoon held gOod-SiZed meeting of
| well-known ctizens-among them Henry
Willard, ex-Commissoner Douglass, Gen.
Van VIiet, Health Officer Woodward
DR.. Billings ex-Secretary Edwin Will
| let's. DIR. d. f. Salmon, Gen. Parke w. F.
Mattingly Parker Mann, Ralph Cross
Johnson Harvey Page, NJ. l. Weller, c. c.
Glover, B. H. Warner and John Joy Edison
who assembled to hear DR.. S. c. Busey,
president of the medical society of the Dis
trict, upon the subject of typhoid epidemics
and conditions and the menace in them at
the present time to the people of Washing
ton. The meeting organized by making
Justice Harlan president and DR.. W. c.
Woodward secretary.
Numerous charts and diagrams illustrat-
ing comparative typhoid conditions in va
riots cities and their relative immunity
from epidemics after the introduction of
pure water supply and adequate sewerage
assisted DR.. Busey in presenting the sub
ject. Water, he said, almost without eX-
Ception carried the typhoid poison, and
those assailed by it took it into their sys-
TENS either in the water they drank or the
food they ate. Thus it was that the water
supply of large cities must be looked to for
explanation of epidemcs of this disease.
Wherever the large cities of Europe and
America, formerly subject to severe NOR
tally from this dread disease, mad re-
moved the source of Conte gion by providing
a source of pure water from springs or
lakes apart from other cities and uncon-
taminated by the excreta of communities
afflicted by typhoid, they had greatly re-
duced the death rate. In Brooklyn, eff
fective had these remedial improvements
been, the rate is but 1.5 deaths to every
10000 of populations ratio SO low that 1t
might almost be considered as nil. Wash
ton so opposite as just now to be simply
appalling. In the period from 1850 to 1870
the ratio was 4.6 to every 10000 of popuia-
ton; in the period from 1888 to 1870 TINS
had increased to 81. And if to this, said
Dr. Busey, the percentage of deaths re-
ported as typho-malarial which are really
typhoid. were added the ratio would be
nearly . i'll every 10000. This is exceeded
in but one other American city, chicago.
Illustrated by Maps.
Reciting and explaining the causes of
this excessive mortality from typhoid, DR..
Busey hung up some maps of Washington
showing the coincidence of pumps and
privies within those parts of the city
visited by outbreaks of typhoid fever.
There are yet in Washington 14.0O0 surface
prives, the drainage from which is nat
urally toward the sources whence the
pumps are supplied with water. Nothing
could be more natural as the sequence OF
effect from Such a cause. w mere the OK
creta from typhoid patients found their
way to the water taken from pumps the
cases of typhoid spread and multiplied.
Even one case. it was shown, could cause
almost incalculable danger. The town of
Plymouth Pa, with something like 5000
population, some years ago had LOO cases
of typhoid and Ill deaths, all from one
case, which occurred in the home of a
mountaineer near little stream which
brought down the city's water supply. The
excreta from this single case, thrown out
on the frozen ground and snow. were
taken on in the spring to the town, and
produced an epidemic and loss of life that,
measured in it's money cost, would have
built a secure water supply and sewerage
system. The same thing nearly was seen
up along the Hudson river a few years ago.
Typhoid fever broke out in Schenectady on
the Mohawk The disease was carried
down stream to every town below that
took water from the Hudson river, into
which the Mohawk empties. Towns that
had water supply from back in the hills
escaped. Washington is liable constantly
from the sewerage of towns on the PotO-
mac above here. DR.. Busey urged that
steps be taken at once to remove all cause
of disease from this source. The 6,0OO or
more pumps and the 1000 privies should
be legis1ated out of the city. and every eff
fort be made to protect the capital from
the dangers that now menace it.
DIR. JOhnstOn's Letter.
Rev Mackay-Smith read a forcibIe letter
from DR.. w. w. Johnston, who had in
tended to address the meeting, but was I'M
avoidably absent
DR.. Johnson said:
There are some general statements of
fact which L think should be presented
with as much repetition and emphasis as
possible.
a. Typhoid fever is the most generally
prevalent and most fatal form of continued
fever which prevails in this city.
go The disease is spread by the drink
1rg of waite contanlnate ted with the spe-
cific poison of typhoid fever ordinary i'm
purites, such as clay or decayed animal
or vegetable matters cannot produce if
The peculiar poison is contained in the
excreta of persons suffering from that dis
ease.
IS. In the case of the Potomac water.
the pollution of the water may take place
at any point, from it's source to the inflow
or the reservoirs. One case of typhoid
fever has been known to pollute a whole
stream, as in the case of the epidemic at
Bethlehem. where 5000 cases and 1000
deaths We're traced to one patient, living
miles away from the town
Multiply one by the number of cases
which occur every year along the banks
of the Potomac between Georgetown and
Harper's Ferry, and some idea may be
formed of the extent of the danger to
which we are exposed from this source.
AS this pollution cannot be stopped by
legislation or otherwise, there is but one
remedy-the early adoption of some such
system for the sedimentation and filtration
Ol the water III the reservoirs as has been
proved to be successful in almost eradi-
eating typhoid fever in many cities of
Europe.
Contaminated Well Water.
a Typhoid fever is also spread by the
drinking of contaminated we'll water. The
larger number of fatal cases in Washington
occur among the poor, who depend wholly
upon the pumps for their supply. Well
water is contaminated by the saturation of
the soil with waste water from the privies
within the city limits. About 5000 of these
are reported annually as full to overflow
and nearly thousand dangerous from
leakage and diapidaton. OF the thousands
of leaking or overlooking privies, a very
large number are receiving daily the pois-
onous discharges from the many hundred
cases of typhoid fever which are con-
stantly in the city at any season. From
the leaking box to the soil and from the
soil to the well the path is an easy and
rapid one. The flow of water is always in
the direction Of the wells, and the occur
renee of rains favors this result. Every
well, therefore, In Washington is liable to
contamination; actual examination has
proved that they are so, and the fact that
contaminated and condemned wells have
been largely found in the southeast and
southwest sections Of the city, where ty-