River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1911-08-03

They make an effort to clean this uumn-well
Perhaps they succeed and perhaps they do
not. The point is that the expenditure of a
little money would protect the pumping sta
ton from inundation
New York state has the same tale of pollu.
ton to tell Albany Cohoes, Dunkirk, Lock
port, Niagara Falls, Ogdensburg, Oswego,
Tonawanda, Watervliet, and other cities drink
river water that is grossly polluted by the
sewage of cities fartheD upstream. And have
seen dozens of photographs or filthy cow-sheds
and barns, the drainage from which polluted
the watershed Cor New York City.
In Illinois fifteen towns north of Chicago
empty sewage into Lake Michigan, and nine
of them draw their drinking water back from
the lake. And what is true of Pennsylvania,
and New York, and Illinois, IS also true of
other states. Particularly is 1t true of the
south From the Atlantic to the Pacific from
tie Gulf to the Lakes, people are need
lessly drinking polluted water.
What is worse, water pollution is on the in
crease. with the rapid growth of popu-
lation," says Alec H. Seymour Secretary of
the New York State Board of Health in
cent bulletin, "the defilement of our streams
also increases Some of our finest streams
and lakes are being rendered unavailable for
boating, bathing fishing, and. domestic use.
They are of no value except as cesspools."
Typhoid fever cannot contract without
taking into ones system germs that have been
voided by typhoid patient These germs
get into the body through the mouth pass
through the stomach into the intestnes, and
are carried through the body by the blood.
They leave the body through the bowels and
in the urine Sometimes infection is carried
by contact or through vegetables and milk;
but the common channel of typhoid transmits
sion is through our water supply I'm order
that germs could find entrance into drinking
water" to quote Dr. Howe again. there must
have been carelessness in caring for the body
wastes of previous victims" And this care
lessness, as we have seen, consists for the
most part in allowing water sources to be
polluted with sewage
In consequence, typhoid, winter cholera and
diarrhoea are most prevalent along water
courses used for both sewage disposal and
water supply. Conversely the typhoid rate
of any town continuously using given water
supply fairly represents the sanitory quality
of that water supply.
The truth of this will be seen by COM
parison of the typhoid rates of towns using
clean water with the rates of towns using
polluted water. In Michigan, for instance,
Allegan, a town of 2,795 population Tin 1000
with a pure water supply had, between 1889
and 1906, 80 cases of typhoid and deaths.
South Haven, town Of 2,767 inhabitants, with
water drawn from Lake Michigan within 100
feet of a sewer outlet, had in the same period
Z45 cases ana "a Q0dLuS. NdHlSIe6, WIFI IA,0GU
population and pure water from wells, had
during these same years a typhoid rate of Is
per 100000 population whereas Menominee,
with 1866 population and polluted water from
Green Bay had a typhoid rate per 100000 of
81 Hartford, Mich, with 1916 population and
impure we'll water, had, between 1889 and
1906, "a typhoid cases and deaths; whereas
Montague, with 1O21 population and pure we'll
water, had in the same period only cases
and deaths. Again, Benton Harbor, with
pure water from deep wells, had a death rate
per 100000 of 17.S; Grand Haven, with pure
we'll water, a rate of 1873; and st. Joseph,
with pure lake water rate or 1913; whereas
the following New York towns using polluted
river or lake water had for ten years-1S99
to 190S-these typhoid rates. Lockport, 4S,4;
Oswego 494; Ogdensburg, SAG; Cohoes S4.S;
Niagara Falls, 1929: and Pittsburg, using
polluted river water, had typhoid rate, from
1900 to 1907, that averages 127 per 100000.
Before the typhoid rate of cities that have
been scourged with epidemics the high ty-
phoid mortality of such cities as Pttsburg
and Niagara Fails dwindles into insignificance.
In WATERFOWL A out of $50 cases were fatal;
in Ithaca 80 out of 1850; in Pittsburg 432
out of 5,265. In Plymouth ia out of / 1O4 per-