The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-07-04

23s; 4, IT, 5, 25s; 6, 1eS. '. 1ss; s, 2So; 9, IFS; 10. 64; II, 168; 12. 26O, Grand total, 224s
 July Worst Month
 From this it will be observed that the greatest number of cases were in July. and the least in the month of February. The number of cases in January was no This was due to the rather large Incidence in the first, third, fifth and eighth districts: there being 67 cases in the month of January in these districts leaving only f cases in all other dis tricts. There were 2S cases in the fifth district in January, 1912.
 The above statistics warrant the follow ing conclusions;
 1. That typhoid fever prevails as an endemic in all districts of the city of Birmingham.
 2. That the incidence begins to increa SC in March and reaches it's maximum in July.
 3. The incidence begins to diminish in August until December
 4 That the increased maximum and minimum, with the exception of the month of January, are coincident with temperature.
 5. The water, food, milk supply. closets, etc., being the same for the year, there must be something that prevails in the warm and hot season that increases the incidence.
 6. This something is in all probability flies as carriers of the typhoid fever germ. In other words. the incidence of the dis ease is coincident with the prevalence of flies.
 '. Insanitary closets as foc of infec- tion and flies as carriers explain the in- creased incidence of typhoid fever in the hot months. Therefore sanitary connec- tions for dry closets and the destruction of flies will prevent the large number of typhoid fever cases during the warm months.
 Sources of Infection
 Detailed data giving important possible sources of typhoid fever infection from July 1, 1914 to June l, 1915:
 WATER
 Public water supply Birmingham Wa terworSs company ................... 35e Well and spring ........................ 52 unknoWn ..........,.......,....... This shows about 90 per cent of the cases of typhoid fever in this period used the public water and about 10 per cent used well and spring water.
 CLOSETS
 Dry closets ..................14 or 34.31 Pct Sanitary .....................270 .270 or 65. 69 Pct. It is impossible to accurately estima te the percentage of the population that used dry closets. It is estimated, however, that inasmuch as these dry tAosets as a rule, are in the more sparsely settled communities that much less than one third of the population use dry closets and yet of all the cases of typhoid fever about one-third used dry closets In this connection, it may be pointed out that as a focus of infection a dry closet is dangerous for at least radius of half a mile There is perhaps no section of the city in which there is not a dry closet within less than half a mile. 1n- vestigation shows that in every section of the city dry closets are found. and in some instances entire blocks It must not be imagined that dry closet is only dangerous to those who use it, but it is focus of infection for others.
 SWEETMILK, BUTTERMILK AND
 BUTTER SUPPLY.
 Sweetmilk-Dairy, 121; private cows, 95; store milk depot 62; restaurant, 13; drug store G. none, 107; unknown, 7 The dairies furnished 407 per cent and other sources of sweetmlk. 59.3 per cent.
 Buttermlk-Dairy, 127; private cows, 147; store or milk depot, 27; restaurant. 12 drug store one: none, S5; unknown 12 It thus appears that the dairies furnished 40 A per cent of the buttermilk supply, and other sources 59.56 per cent
 Butter-Dairy 65; private cows 97, store