The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-09-08

] than that of countries which we are l apt to consider less civilized than our | own.
 Typhoid Time Coming.
 Another typhoid season is again at i hand With the advent of summer | weather, the presence of flies con- | tamtnation of food products, and the | increased liability of infection through | changes of residence, it once more is | necessary for health bodies to sound | a warning note, This is becoming an annual custom and doubtless will soon be considered one of the early prog | nostications of the onset of the sum mer season, but the health officer should not modify his tones on this | account. He Is indeed a prophet and the voice of the prophet should be heard.
 Fingers, Flies and Filth. Typhoid fever is g, disease of filth It can only be contracted by taking into the system the waste products of one previously i'll of the disease These waste products are conveyed from one individual to anoNler usual 1y by means of a third object, such as water, flies or milk. Even if dis ease itself were never contracted in this manner we should revolt at the abhorrence of the idea of such un- cleanliness. For every case of the in lection developing. someone. either the municipality or the individual, has been careless, and public opinion will soon regard such carelessness as criminal. In the eyes of the health officer typhoid. fever is strictly a pre- veUntabIe disease. invariably origi- hating from an antecedent case, and contracted in most loathsome man ners
 Typhoid Fever Fact, Not a Theory.
 Our scientific Knowledge of the dis ease is most complete. For thirty years the ,causative organism has been known and studied, Its habitat has been surveyed. the associating or ganisms classified, and the many facts relating to the life of the bs cilIus full ly recorded. For nearly twenty years we have been an possession of most delicate blood tests for the recogr1i- ton of the disease, tests which are not only of great diagnostic worth but which should actually assist in the prevention of the infection Our knowledge of the dissemination of the disease in both it's epidemic and endemic forms, is consequently exact and, definite. Not content with ac4 complishments along these lines the medical profession, in view of the continued morbidity, has even devised methods by which the public may continue to live under insanitary con- dftions with perfect impunity, so far as this particular disease is concerned. Tn other words, persons may take into their systems the filth which pro- duces disease and death and yet. if the preventive treatment has been re- ceived, apparently remain free from harmful effects.
 Eighteen Thousand Deaths Per Am
 mum.
 Tn spite of these efforts and ac- mp1ishments the frightful mortality continues and the disease this year will again usher 1s,oOo victims to their graves Plainly, the pra cticaI application of our Knowledge is far and away behind the scientific data in our possession. and a, large propor- ton of the population is ignoring the very principles which have been so we'll established. For this reason. health officers realize that further steps toward prevention must be the result of more general enlightenment and the better education of the mass of the people.
 Typhoid Abolition Community Mat
 ter.
 The avoidance of the infection rests primarily upon community action. The proper protection of water sup