Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1914-03-12
Responsibility Of THE HOME
FOR The HEALTH Of THE SCHOOL

epldemlcS. Individuals, innocent OF
any w%rong-doing hut victims of mis-
fortune, contracting smallpox, diph.
iberia, scarlet fever, etc were treated
as criminals and deprived OF their
freedom often Under conditions often.
sive to common decency. Even more
%senseless was the custom of shutting
up well members of family with the
sick, under pretence Of protecting tic
community, and refusing to allow
them to leave the house.
Until quite recently, and in some
places the idea still prevails, the
most efficient health officer was con.
/ sidered to be the one that inflicted
the greatest hardship on the family
and the community in general. TO es
tablish Il rigid quarantine, to appeal
to the authorities for armed guards
to prevent access to or cgress. from
an infected house, %to>refuse the bread
winner OF the family to remain at
home, at. the very time hisr4wages
and help was most needed; to close
zip schools. hotels aud paralyzc bust
ness appeared TO he the chief duty
of health boards and health officers.
Now this vas to a great extent due
to ignorance as Ia. the methods Of the
spread of infection,
People knew that certain diseases
when they appeared in a community
spread with great rapidity and that
in households many members Of the
same family sure to be stricken.
Naturally enough a theory that
such diseases p~rOpaSatcd
through the air prevailed .and thai
they could be carried from one person
to another by a third person, not in
fccted himself, was common belief.
Malaria was supposed to be due to Il
miasma from swamps. Typhoid fever,
diphtheria, cholera and other intesti.
nal disorders were supposed to, be
due to filthy and unsanitary sur
roundings. Sewer gas accounted for
any outbreak in even the houses of
the wealthy with The most sanitary
surroundings. s"% @a p
Now We do not lock for the cause
OF disease in the surroundings but
search for the individual source OF
Infection. i
AS DR.. RI. W.. HILL formerly con.
nected with The Minnesota State
Board of Health but now Director Of
the Institute of Public Health, at
London, Ontario, has aptiy. put it:
The old public. health was concern
ed with the environment, the new is
concerned with the individual"
. I,,~,, ~, III. ,,F - ,,r . I>
most of us, the new public health
work does not recognize eve the
most filthy surroundings as q source
Of contagious disease, Dirt in itself
does not produce disease but it does
facilitate the. spread Of disease. Fill
thy garbage cans. manure piles, cess
pools, dead and ,%decayins animal do
not produce typhoid fever. but they
do provide excellent breeding places
for the germs of that disease if they
become infected from an individual
who has .the dis ase. ...w
Even the much maligned and swat
ted house fly cannot. infect anyone
typhoid fever, consumption or
any other contagious disease unless
he is first infected himself. This does
not mean that the fly must actually
have the disease, but that he must
have had access to- the germs which
have been discharged from ON pa.
tent.
The narrowing down of the source
Of infection to a person who has had
The disease not only makes the pre-
vention of contagious diseases a