Bisbee daily review., 1902-05-27


 many years, first in Tombstone and then in Tucson, has written a long ar ticle for the San Francisco Examiner in which he discusses The Utility an1 Futility of Boards of Health" To the average mind. who has given no study to the cause of disease the proposi- ton maintained by Dr. Goodfellow will at once seem remarkable, and if the theory so ably maintained is correct then humanity has wasted a great deal of time and money in trying to ward of disease by the removal and avoidance of filth. Dr. Goodfellow as- serts that filth has nothing whatever to do with the creation of disease and undertakes to prove that disease of no kind is produced by filth and uncleah- Illness. But be this as it may cleanil- ness is yet desirable and its promo tion should be encouraged. The arti- cle in the Examiner by Dr Goodfellow is too lengthy to publish here in full, but the following extracts from il will no doubt prove interesting to our read CTS:
 Purity ip all things-environment, ailment and conduct-indubitably con- tributes profoundly to the material well-being of the unfortunate inhabi tants of this sublunary sphere, but that such immaculateness could ele- yata fa,1ty bor,ouit fo tho 1oliuhts of the Heaven above, Tor enable the greater part to attain Methuselan years, is a proposition that must be submitted to the test of criticism, and, if not sustained by incontestable evi- dence must be relegated to the limbo of other equally as pleasing but equal ly as fallicious theories promulgated and supported in past time by intel lects as keen as those which adhere to present doctrines.
 It is only since 1S42 that accurate records have been kept concerning the so-called filth diseases and these mostly in England-at least until q few years ago. In the United States the collocation of statistics began about thirty years ago, since which time presumably precise data have been compiled yearly and issued bv the numerous board of health of the different states and territodies, as well as by the United States Marine Hos pital Service.
 Reference 10 these records contro verts most emphatically the conten- tion that the filthiest and most unsani tary parts of cities are the hotbeds of zymotic diseases.As being accessible to any of the readers of this article, for example. let us take the records of the Board of Health Of San Fran. cisco in respect to these maladies.
 It is a well known fact that China town" is a woefully dirty section of the community. There is no dispute about that. so far as known 10 the writer; but, strange to say, the re ports of the Board of Health demon strate that the healthiest part of he city of San Francisco is that same b. cality, no death from any zymotic disease having been reported or re- corded since record-keeping began until within the past two years If the averment that filth and disease are synonomous terms-that typhoid, dip theria, etc. flourish only in foul local ities-surely Chinatown" should be a very "hotbed" of infectious and contagious maladies The contra ", however, is true-none of that class of disease either originating or propoga:ing there ;o a grea, ex.en; o- with greater mortality than in more cleanly sections; and the same is true of every city in the world where sys- tematic observations have been made and recorded. Reference to the re ports of tn Registrar-General of Eng land, as well as to reports of innumer- able commissions" appointed by vari- ous governments and medical associa- tions to investigate the origin of the Zymotic disease are not concurrent, conditions equal-more or less antag- onistic one to the other This clinical view is further sustained by the inves- tigations of the bacteroIogists, who tell us that the so-calied pathogenic germs, that is to say, the diseasepro- ducing germs, can "only live in me dium specially sterilized for them;- that wherever saprophytic or putre- factive bacteria exist disease-prodnc- ing germs cannot live. mother words