The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1912-03-06
TRACE EPIDEMIC.
Fever In COatesviIle Might
Have Been Prevented.
ALICE FOUL CONDITIONS.
Typhoid That Has Cost Fourteen Lives
and Hundreds of Cases Of Illness
Due to Carelessness, II Is Said.
Blame Hospital Sewer Outlet.

Coatesville, Pa. Feb. 29.-That the
typhoid epidemic which has already
cost fourteen lives, hundreds of cases
of illness and intense anxiety among
the residents Of this town might have
been prevented had the danger signals
been needed is the feeling among
many who look back to conditions that
existed previous to the outbreak.
According to the charges made in
this connection three rotten planks-
warped, cracked and eaten through in
score of places by storms and chem.
icals-have cost the town, within the
past three weeks, the fourteen precious
lives and the many cases of illness.
These three planks were plain, rough
inch and seven-eighths poplar timbers.
One formed the bottom Of sluice.
flume or acqueduct and the other two
the upright sides. 1t is about three
feet wide and two feet deep.
All the refuse and all the overflow
from the Coatesville hospital, which
crests the hills on the far side of
the saucerlike valley. it is asserted.
flows into this deadly aqueduct or
f1ume. This horrible surge does not
flow across the wooden trough. There
are too many holes and cracks, too
many warped joints and openings in
the trough, it is said, for anything to
flow through it.
All this refuse from the hospital-or
nearly all-falls into a tiny brook that
runs from the station from which wa
ter, it is charged, is pumped into
Coatesvilles reservoir, through a mill
! and on to Coatesville's great sewer
Brandywine creek.
At point 100 yards below the pump
ing station-between the station and
the mill-the wooden aqueduct crosses
this continuati tion of Sucker Run. or tail.
race as it is called
In times of freshet or in DAYS of
heavy rain the three planks are over.
| flowing with the refuse from the hos
pital. On other days steady flow
seeps into the flume and percolates into
this tailrace
When the pump at the station broke
down on Jan. 49, the authorities be
gan to worry about fire service.
For four days thereafter this iron
monster pumped into Coatesvilles res
ervoir, from which the town obtains
| its entire water supply, all the germ
laden flow sf Newlin's Run, which. If
it were not for the excess from the
hospital, would be nothing but a dry
ditch. II is thought by many that
good part of the contents of Newlin's
Run between the place where the two
pipes from the hospital disgorge their
contents of the tailrace, is composed
of sewage.
For two weeks and more Coatesville.
it is charged was drinking this sew
age. And then came the scourge of
fever
Coatesville is starting TO uncover the
political deadwood. The disease is
| checked. There are fewer daily vic
Tins, because no longer is the auxiliary
pump casting the refuse from the hos.
pital into the reservoir. The old pump
ing station is working again. The
aqueduct is still there. filtering into the
tailrace, but that refuse is sweeping
into the Brandywine. Hypochoride
plants have been installed at the
, pumps and at the gravity dam by the
state authorities.
DR.. Samuel G. Dixon, state commits
sioner of health his associate, the
chief medical inspector DR.. C. j. Hunt.
and Miss Katharine Gillespie, state
nurse, have practically taken over the
powers of the Coatesville board of
health and are in full charge of the
water supply, the hospital and the
emergency hospital.