East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1909-02-09
WAR ON DREAD TUBERCULOSIS
CARRIED INTO THE sCHOOLROOMs

protected from contamination By
carefully installed plumbing.
brought together in a single room
lie school sanitation been met? Do
We get clean air?
I'm a building of many rooms,
from forty to fifty pupils, coming
from all sorts of home, conditions are
Pupils in school today, are out to-
several hours of the day. ten months
of the year. Each contributes to the
dust of that room from his particular
environment. II pupil is Ill. or as
sociates in his own family or else
where, without precautfon, with those
who are afflicted, the germs OF the
disease with which he has come in
contact are likely to be found in the
dust contents OF the room where that
pupil attends school.
Pupils in school today, are QUITO
morrow, i'll with whooping cough,
scarlet fever, diphtheria, influenza,
pneumonia or other communicable
diseases.
"The dust OF the room today is
pregnant with the spit Of yester-
day.
1T is significant that the outbreak
of any of these diseases, in the
schoolroom, is frequently not limited
to the initial case.
Closed Windows Increase Illness.
When the time of the year arrives
that the doors and windows of our
schoolrooms are closed, and depend
ence is had upon artificial ventila-
ton, It is significant that the number
of days absence upon the part of pu-
pills, certified by parents as due to
illness, materially increases. During
the milder months of spring and fall
the broad free draughts from open
doors and windows keeps the air of
the schoolroom comparatively free
from the dust brought in by the chill
dren, and pulveriZed into impalpa-
bility by the grinding of many feet.
Both experiment and observation |
have shown that the ordinary ventila-
tion, effective though it be in remov-
ing gaseous contaminations, has but |
little influence in diminishing the am
cunt Of dust floating in the air. Be- |
ing present in abundance, it is kept |
constantly in suspension by the move !
ments of the many pupils.
Dust is the great vehicle for the |
of many pathogenic |
germs. The dust evil is the greatest |
problem of sanitation remaining for |
public school authorities to solve.
Without great care the school
houses becomes the disease clearing
houses of the community.
THE method now in vogue of
sweeping in the evening and dusting
in the morning, with a feather dust,
er, thus twice in twenty-four hours
churning the dust of the room into
is nothing less than GRIM
inal disregard Of unanimous medical
opinion.
Teachers and school boards have
come to regard the presence of dust
in the school room as a normal con-
dition. 1t has seemed a hopeless
thing to contend against. They are
like the father who came to school
to demonstrate with the principal
who had sent his little girl home be-
cause of vermin in her hair Every
body has them" he replied, as he
insisted upon her being left undis-
turbed in her uncleanly condition.
why this serious disregard Of an
grave condition?
There is not a physician of fepute, |
with a knowledge Of conditions, who |
would dare to assert that deaths and |
serious illness have not been directly |
to the dust in our school
houses.
Cause and Effect.
nSmallnnY will throw q community