The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-12-13
CUNNINGHAM FOR
 CONSOLIDATION
BELIEVES ALL INTERESTS WILL BE BENEFITED BY ANNEXATION OF WILLIAM TO ENSLEY-LET- TER TO NOLAN.

pr. R. NJ Cunningham is heartily in favor of the consolidation of the towns of Ensley and Wylam. He sent letter to John E. Nolan of Wylam. giving his idea of the mutual benefits to be de- rived therefrom. The letter reads as fol- lows:
 John E. Nolan, Mayor, Vivian, Ala;
 Sir-I am informed that the mayor and board of aldermen of Ensley passed an ordinance providing for the municipal union of the cities of Wylam and Ems ley. subject to the ratification of the ma tority of the vote at Wylam voting upon the question.
 This is a question of transcendant inn portance not only to the people of Wy lam, but of Ensley also. The people of the two cities have many things, natural and artificial, in common. Among these are the sanitation. the character of their population, education, police pro- lection, insurance, municipal and arti- ficial prestige, etc. These conditions are not changed by the artificial boundaries of municipalities. Some of these condi- tions are natural and some artificial. The natural conditions are fixed and cannot be independently dealt with by the separate municipalities. The first and perhaps the most important are matters of sanitation The close rela- ton of the two cities makes these mat ters of mutual and reciprocal inter est To obtain the best results there must be co-operation, the purpose and method of both cities must be the same. Tie probability is that this is impossible by separate city governments. Therefore the question of merging the two cities so as to have one government to carry out these and other purposes and to employ one method is of the greatest importance to the two cities. I respectful call your attention to some of these.
 Sanitaton-The vast majority of acute diseases depend upin bacteria, or small disease depends upon bacteria or small affected with the several disea ses caused by the different varieties of organism and escaping in some way from these patients into healthy individuals, cause epidemcs or endemics of these diseases. The problem therefore, Is;
 l. To dsinfect or destroy the organism as 1t escapes from the patient.
 9 To guard against the introduction of such as may not have been destroyed into the bodies of heslthy subjects.
 Part of this problem Is individual, but part is community corporation. For ex- ample. let us briefly discuss the two es- sential fever epidemics, that is to say, always present in more or less degree Tn those communities.
 Typhoid Fever-Thls fever is caused by an organism called the bacillus typhonus. It multiplies rapidly in persons with the disease and escapes from the patient in the discharge from the body. All these discharges should be promptly destroyed, or disinfected this is an individual prob- lem, that is for the family physician, etc. If the organisms are not destroyed, they may reach the drinking water. food, air, etc, and through these infect others. If the two cities have q common water sys- tenn, drainage, sewerage, inspection of food and water, etc, they might possibly carry out the best method of prevention. Without these 1t Is impossible. Therefore, if the natural conditions as to drainage. food. water. etc., are the same In the two cities. 1t is impossible for separate muni- cpalities to carry out the best regula- tions.
 Malaria-Ths disease. intermittent and remittent levers, and other forms of ma laria are caused by an animal parasite called the plasmodius maariae. The means of it's propagation is the mosquito, the species known as anophele- This spe- cies of mosquito bites a person with ma laria. It draws into its body the male and female elements of the parasite. In the body of the mosquito the parasite is grown. The mosquito then bites a healthy person and infects with the malaria para site. The problem here is to protect the patient with malaria from the bites of mosquitoes. This. the part of the patient, physician family, etc. and to destroy the breeding places of the mosquito, is the problem of the community
 Epidemics of these diseases are a dis