The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1899-02-24
UNFILTERED WATER.
Said to Have Caused Over 5000
Deaths In Thirty-Five Cities
In 1896.

If some fierce barbar:c horde, like
the Goths and Nandals of old, were in
the habit of swooping down every year
upon the civilized regions of North
America, killing our people by tens OF
thousands and wounding from $4,000 to
100000 more, all for lack of adequate
defenses, which would cost a few beg
carly millions of dollars, what howl
of Indignation there would be! How
pulpit, would ring With denunciations
of the criminally apathetic authorities
who permitted such an unnecessary
sacrifice! Yet would such needless
loss in battle be any more deplorable
or any more criminal than permitting
the death or serious injury annually of
the same number of people by the
many diseases which we now know to
be preventable? A rough calculation,
based upon statistics given in a new
book by John w. Hill, shows that ty-
phoid alone in the year 1896 caused up
ward of 5000 deaths in IS American
and Canadian cities, saying nothing of
the deaths from the same cause in the
smaller towns and country places. For
every fatal case there were at least
four that recovered, which would make
10000 condemned to long and trying
illness, with persisting ill health in
many of them, and there must, in fact,
have been a considerably larger pro-
portion of recoveries under our i'm
proved modern methods of treatment.
But the strilling-one might even say
startling-fact demonstrated by Mr..
Hills book is that the death rate from
typhoid fever, instead of ranging from
80 to Ga in each 100000 of population,
as it did in Philadelphia from 1890 to
1896, or from 81 to 100 in each 100000,
as in Chicago during the same period,
need not be over or s in the 100000, if
only our municipalities could be gov
erned on business principles, with the
help of the best sanitary science.
The proof is to be found in the effects
of thorough system of sand filtration
of public water supplies in number of
European cities. For instance, in Ber-
lin the mortality from typhoid has. by
such filtration, been so reduced that in
each of the years 1895 and 1896 1t was
S, while in 1894 it was only 4, in every
100000 of the population. In Amster-
dam the rate was 10 in 1890, and came
down to in 1896. In Hamburg the pro-
portion was % in the 100000 in 1890.
but an epidemic of cholera compelled
the institution of radical measures for
the publication of the polluted Elbe
water (Which, however, as the typhoid
death rate shows, was not half as filthy
as the SchuyllSill river water furnished
to Philadelphia) and, in consequence,
the typhoid rate in 1896 had fallen to 6
in the 100000.
But lest the thrifty governing bodies
of those American cities whose inhab.
itants are still obliged 10 drink diluted
sewage should use these figures in SUPP
port of the adoption Of some one ofthe
various mechanical filters which are
being actively exploited in this coun-
try, It is proper to add a few more sta
istics. In Atlanta, Ga, the typhoid
death rate was ISL in 1890, and, in spite
of the 6 operation of a mechanical filter,
had net been reduced lower than so in
1896. In Chattanooga, Tenn, the rate
was 145 in 1890, and with the help of
mechanical filter, came down to GO in
1S96-to a rate just is times higher
than it should be under proper santa
tion.-lnternationa Medical Magazine.