The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-07-14
TYPHOID FEVER
 IS PREVENTABI.E Y

Four hundred thousand persons in capacltated, and thirty thousand lives l lost-this Is the heavy toll exacted in | the United States each year by the phoid fever is a preventable disease! A recent bulletin of the United
 States Public Health Service entitled | 'sTyphoid FeVer@Its Causat1on and past ten years few of our connuni- l ties having as many as two thousand persons have remained free from this | disease for any period of twelve con secutive months In recent times the rate of its prevalence for the United
 States as a whole has been from two to five times as high as in some of l the countries of Europe, In these
 European countries the typhoid rate was formerly higher than the present
 figures for the United States. Their great reductions in the rayageS of the I disease have been brought about by l Improvements i'm sanitary cond1tions. In many American cities there has occurred within the last twenty years a considerable reduction of typhoid
 fever. Due in a large part to 1mprov- ed sanitary conditions in the cities, the typhoid rate for some entire states has shown a material decrease. For the country as a whole, according to available figures, the rate has been reduced about 50 per cent in the past q
 about the same as that which pre-
 vailed in some of the other advanced nations of the world 30 years ago. In other words the United States is a generation behind the times, in re- .spect to the reduction of its typhoid
 rata
 Practical and efficient measures for
 the prevention of typhoid fever are definitely known, but the efforts to
 get the people of the average self
 governing community bo carry out these measures to reasonable ex- tent are oftent1mes decidedly exper1- mental in character. Tn many i'm stances the cost of modern sanitary fnnpr ovements has been an obstacle in the way of typhoid preVention- II is often difficult to convince the gov
 erning authorities that money ax- pended in the protection of the pub lie health yields large dividends. In rural communities and small xny1nic cspa174ieS another faCtor--the in
 strvuction and cooperation Of the in the problem. Here every home must
 have its own method of sewage dis ppsa1 and in most cases it's own wa ter supply. The Public Health Ser vice bulletin above referred to deals
 in a comprehensive way with the construction of wells and outhousea
 In recent years a specific method
 for increasing Individual resistance to
 Typhoid germs has been employed This is known as anfatyphoid iuocu-
 lat7on or t+vaccInat5on-' This method
 has been used extensively in military organizations of the United States. and from the results obtained it ap- pears that 1nocnEa1ed persons are, up- on equal exposure to typhoid tn9ec- ton, lass than one-fourth as likely to
 develop the disease as those who have
 not been 1nocu1ated and who have previously had the disease The aver 1 age duration of protection given by inoculation has not been determined. but is supposed to be about two years
 It is pointed out. however. that the protection given by andtYphoid in
 oculaddon is relative, not absolute, and that such inocuIafion is not to be re- garded as substitute for sanitation ! The city of Paducah, Ky. will bor-.
 row S1Oe, ,8OO from the National City
 Bank Of New York. at per cont The l