Evening capital and Maryland gazette., 1915-05-26
MARYLAND HELD UP
AS SANITARY MODEL
New Health Law Put State Ahead
Of Others.
SURVEY IN ANNE ARUNDEL.
Federal Physicians Cooperating With
Force Under DR.. Fulton Work
VIII Take Until June.

TOfCe Onoef III. TuitOn WOTk
Win Take Until June.
II probably will surprise many Mary
landers to learn that. as a result of the
act passed by the last Legislature di-
viding the State into ten districts and
providing a deputy State Healthoficer
for each district. Maryland has come
to be a model for other States of the
Union in the mater of educating rural
communities 70 place the proper value
on sanitation
Each Of these deputy State health
officers is a physician and devotes his
whole time to his work does not prac
tice medicine Officers OF the United
+ States Public Health Service. are now
making survey of the sanitation of
Anne Arundel county.
They completed. last October, such
survey OF Dorchester county and they
probably will later go to wicomico
county The State public health Off
GERS. under the direction of Dr. John
S Fulton worked with the United
States officers in Dorchester county
and are now working with them in
Anne Arundel county.
State Called Model.
Or. L. L. Lumsden, of the Federal
Public Health Service, said at the re-
cent meeting OF the Medical and Chi
rurgical Faculty that Maryland was a
model for the country in this work.
DR.. VIM. II. Welch made it the theme
of an address at one of the meetings
of the National Conference of Chari-
ties and Correction recently in con-
vention in Baltimore. and described it
as a work of tremendous importance
which was being splendidly done. DR..
Lumsden has been in charge of the
Federal Governments part in the re-
form work going on.
The aim OF this work is to carry to
the remotest farm in the State under
standing of what dangers to the health
of the family lie in the old crude and
carless methods of disposing of the
human waste which is produced about
farm; how typhoid fever, in partic-
ular, is produced by crude forms of
outhouses which permit the water sup
ply of the home to be polluted and how
vitality important il is that modern
houses be substituted for these an
cient structures and all buildings
screened so that flies may be prevent
ed from carrying disease
In Anne Arundel Until June.
1t has not been an easy matter to
carry this information to county peo-
pie in remote districts. Ten Govern
ment physicians and almost as many
State health officers worked from
July to October last year before the
survey of Dorchester county was fin
ished As many are now working in
Anne Arundel county. The survey
was started here in April, and proba-
bly, will occupy the men who are work
ing on it until some time in June.
The difficulties which these men over
came in the Dorchester county survey
and which they are now overcoming in
this county, were and are big and real.
In order to cover the ground in the
time at their disposal they have been
forced TO get up early, to stay at it late
and TO meet and solve all sorts of di-
itculties of transportation and of liv-
ing. They have been forced to drive.
by motor or by buggy, to ride horse
back at times. and at other times to
trudge on foot for miles to carry their
message of the modern point Of view
to inaccessible spots.
They have been forced to use all
imaginable diplomacy in making peo-
pie in backward districts see what
large dividends in health and in hu-
man life would be returned for all the
small investments of replacing their
old, out-of-date outhouses with mex
pensive modern buildings.
| Protection of the milk supply is an
other matter which has been called to
the attention of the farmer. The work
has not been confined. of couse. to
farms.bu the towns and villages in
tn counties have been "speeded up" on
| their sanitary arrangements.
Counties Should Take Up Work.
''1t is a very big work" said DR.
Fulton. the secetary of the State
Board Of Health. who is responsible
for the fact that the National Govern
ment has made the one survey and is
now making the other.
1T viii make great change in con-
ditions of health in Maryland But l
do not believe in Capitalization in gov
ernment. and l think the counties
should do this work themselves.
Every Board of County Commission
ers in every county is a State board of
health for that county. and each
county has its health officer in addi-
tion TO the deputy State health officer
The counties should take up this
work for themselves. The sanitation
of the State must be more modern than
it is now is and we have not the facili-
ties for overcoming the whole State.
schools OF Public Hygiene