The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-12-04
Filthy Conditions the Cause of an
Appalling Rate.
RECORD FOR ONE WEEK
RATE OF ELEVEN PER CENT PER
YEAR.
Ludicrous Attempts of the Spaniards
to Clean the City-No Improve
ment Possible Until Americans
Obtain Full Control-Contract For
a Railroad-American Arriving.

New York, Dec. "a special to the
Tribune from Washington says: Sur
geon General Wyman of the marine
hospital service has received a report
from DR.. w. F. Drummer. the United
States sanitary inspector at Havana,
! covering the week ending Nov. a,
which shows little or no Improvement
| in the health conditions of that city,
in spite of the efforts now being made
to. prepare it for the American army of
occupation. In the week there were
440 deaths, giving an annual death rate
/ Of 114.40 per thousand, most OF them
! being due to the filthy condition of the
city and the lack of good food. yell
low fever, enteric fever, malarial fe-
yer and pernicious fever are credited
with causing respectively four, thirty
/ two, siXty-four and nine deaths; sixty
nine are attributed to entericis, twenty
six to dysentery, one to starvation,
nine to pneumonia and fifty-five to tu-
berculosis. OF the four cases of yellow
fever, two were among the Spanish
troops in military hospitals, and the
others among civilians. DR.. Drummer
thinks there are less than sixty cases in
the city. The report continues:
4 am at a loss to understand why
the enormous death rate continues.
The weather conditions favor a de-
crease in the death rate, and, while the
city is filthy and dirty in the extreme,
cannot see that the native population
should be unusually affected by such
a condition Of affairs. There are some
few cases of malarial fever occurring
among crews of vessels in the harbor,
but they are mild in their nature, and
yield TO treatment. Since Sept "a there
must have been from fifteen to twenty
American schooners in this port. Near
~ all of them discharged their cargoeS
of lumber at Tallapiedra wharf on
some other badly infected dock, but
no known cases of yellow fever have
developed among the men composing
the crews. In fact, the largest death
rate has occurred in the suburbs of the
city, sections well removed from the
bay those two known as the Cerro and
Nedado showing an abnormally high
death rate.
Some attempts have been made to
clean the city, but as they were not
made intelligently, they We're not eff.
fective. Fire-engines have been used
for flushing the sewers, but as they
merely pumped the water into the
streets, allowing it to drain into the
sewers, little good was accomplished.
The work could have been made eff
fective by pumping into each of the
manholeS, OF catch basins, beginning
at the head Of the sewer and pumping
to the outlet. An abortive attempt was
made to sweep some of the streets by
means of withes tied together. The
methods were as ludicrous as they were
futile. The excreta of hundreds of
homeless people and of numbers of
those who have homes lines the side
walks of side streets, and the indiffer-
ence shown to these conditions is re-
markable, even when the character of
the population is considered. It is to
be hoped that the city win be made
mechanically clean before the American
troops are allowed to enter"