The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1904-06-29
WEDNESDAY. JUNE %, 1904
the TYPHOID FEVER
NOW TO PREVENT IT
State Board of Health Issues a Bulletin
AMI Requests That 1t Be Given
Wide Publicity.

The Washington state board of health
has issued its bulletin as agreed upon
when in this city in May on the import
ant subject of typhoid fever, its causes,
prevention, etc. The bulletin follows:
Though typhoid fever is an certainly
and readily preventable as any of the
contagious and infectious diseases, yet
each year more deaths occur in Wash
ington from this disease than from all
the other preventable diseases combined,
if we except consumption.
''The chief reason for this is the pop.
ular ignorance of or indifference to the
measures which should be taken to pre-
vent 1t.
typhoid fever has been proven be-
yond all doubt to be due to specific
micro. organism known as the bacillus
typhosus or bacillus of eberth, which
h taken into the intestinal canal either
in water or other fluids or with food.
That bacillus comes only from the bowel
discharges, the urine and the sputum
tspita) of a person sick with typhoid
fever; therefore q person who has ty-
phoid fever must have swallowed some
of the bacilli typhosi which comes from
the body of person suffering from that
disease.
UNFORTUNATELY when the bacilli ty
hosi pass out of the body of the pa
tient they do not die, but continue to
live and multiply in this material al
most as we'll as within the body. Cold,
even freezing, does not kill them, but
when frozen or when the weather is too
cold, they lie dormant, and on being
warmed up they at once begin to null
tiply and are as virulent as ever. This
is why the diease is not as prevalent in
the colder seasons of the year as dur
ing the warmer seasons.
1.-THE two most important methods of
conveying this disease are through the
medium of water and the common house
fly. Whenever the discharges from the
bowels are deposited in a common privy
vault or in a sewer the eventual desti-
nation of the liquid elements is running
water, either upon the surface or below
the surface of the ground, and this run
ming water, whether surface or sub-sur-
face water, not only can, but often
does contaminate sources of water
supply, which then become infect
ed. If the excrement of typhoid
fever patient be thrown upon the
surface of the gruond or in an open
privy without being disinfected, the bac-
ill are often carried by the surface wa
ter into the wells and streams in the
vicinity and even at considerable dis
lance.
whenever the bowel movements or
vomited matter or urine or sputum of
person sick with typhoid fever are left
exposed without being disinfected, flies
will get at them and very greatly in
crease the danger of spreading the dis
ease. 1t has been demonstrated to a
certainty that flies do pick up the baclli
on their feet, and not only deposit them,
on the food of people living in the vicin-
ity, but upon the manure piles and
other accumulations of filth, where they
breed rapidly and thus spread the in
lection.
ITO prevent the spread OF typhoid
fever it is necessary to prevent the ty-
phoid bacilli being conveyed from one
person to another. This would not be
difficult if the excrement of all per-
sons sick with that disease were thor
oughly disinfected. The trouble, how