The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-12-13
THE WASHINGTON
 TYPHOID EPIDEMIC.

The report on the occurrence and
 causation of typhoid fever in Wash ington, D. C., by pr. l.. l.. Lumsden and pr. John F. Anderson of the U s. Public Health and Marine-Hospit- al Service, just published, is, accord ing to The Journal of the American
 Medical Association, the most patient and elaborate study of an epidemic of
 typhoidefever hitherto made in the United States. Typhoid fever had
 long been abundant in Washington and it's excess was widely attributed
 to the water-supply until in 1905 the
 installation of a model slow sand nl-
 ter for purifying the Potomac River water failed to reduce the amount of typhoid fever.
 In 1906 the Hygienic Laboratory of the U. $. Public Health and Marine Hospital Service began an investiga- tion. It was found that about 22 per cent. of all the cases apparently con tracted the disease. elsewhere. Neg roes, composing 2S' Der cent. of the of the reported cases-a lower rate than that of the whites. The nor tality rate, on the contrary, was 50.4 for negroes and 23.1 for whites. As sorting that the disease has had not a single, but multiple origin, the authors consider at length the part played by the various possible fac- tors. seeking to apportion to each it's contributory share. A larger number of cases was found, for example, among the users. of privies than among the users of sewers. Milk, in 1909, as in the earlier years, is found to have been lone of the major fac tors.' Ice-cream. although none of the cases in 1909 was definitely at- tributable to it. is nevertheless re- garded with suspicion. Raw fruits and vegetables, while not actually proved guilty. are rightly suspected as contributory factors, especially as typhoid fever cases were found in several instanceson grossly unsanitary farms supplying Washington with green vegetables Flies receive due attention and are allowed "a consitl- erable. part' in the whole; but the authors very properly point out the tween the fly season and typhoid pre- valence, and deny to flies any ma Jor" part.
 Water naturally received most consideration, but the authors re- peatedly conclude that very little if any of the typhoid fever in Wash ington has, since 1906, come from the water. &
 The shellfsh question takes on spe- ciaI prominence in cities like Wash ington, Baltimore and Richmond, To- cated near the vast oyster beds of CIloSctpedht ody. 1H0A report con- cludes that oysters probably played "a considerable part in the causation of typhoid fever in Washington in 190S9, and probably contributed more largely than any other single factor to the undue prevalence of the disease in that winter
 The investigators are convinced that the greater part of the typhoid fever in Washington comes through milk, green vegetables and other foods, and by fingers and flies. Some of the infection undoubtedly is de- rived from without the city,. but the bulk aof it is spread from typhoid fever patients and typhoid carriers within the city. Five years study of the situation shows that an efficient within the city against typhoid fever as a communicabl ble disease and the enforcement of req sonable measures to prevent the in of infection into the city from without through food supplies, such as milk, green vegetables and shellfish, would reduce typhoid fever in the District of Columbia to a neg ligible quantity.