The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1915-01-22
Civic Sanitation

Il Is It's IlSGuOlu from ulSedSGB ana III
t order to be free from disease it must
i be free from the agents that carry
t disease. Any town can be kept in d
5 healthy condition, if the people really
S want it and are willing to pay the
i price.
S Disease is transmitted chiefly
c through personal contact, by inocula-
!, ton, by inhalation or through the ali
. mentary canal.
S The lrruptive diseases, such as scar
{ let fever, chickenpox, smallpox, mea-
sizes, or diptheria and whooping cough,
S are spread by personal contact, either
j directly or indirectly.
S plague, Rocky Mountain tick fever, At
), plague, Rock Mountain tick fever, Al
: rican sleeping sickness are caused by
. incubation, that is, some insect first
, becomes infected by biting an infected
:. person, and then in turn spreads the
r disease by biting others.
. Colds, grippe, consumption and
. pneumonia are contracted by inhaling
. germ-laden air.
Typhoid fever, cholera, dysentery,
Berl Berl, pelagra find access through
the alimentary canal
For the prevention of the diseases
caused by personal contact, quarantine
is used. The patient should be i'm
mediately isolated for the required
, number of days, and no communica-
ton allowed with the outside world
Food should be sent in, preferably on
paSteboard plates, which can be burn
ed, or pan of disinfectant, like BIZ
chloride of mercury, could be left out
side the sickroom, in which the used
dishes could be placed. Then be-
fore mingling with the world again,
the patient, nurse, and the contents
of house should be thoroughly dis
infected.
AS rule, quarantine will be much
better enforced, should the disease be
of serious form at tho outset, be-
cause Its seriousness is at once recog-
nlzed, and the quarantine officer has
the cooperation of all concerned. But
when the opposite condition exists,
when the child is taken down with an
attack say of scarlet fever SO light
that he is only i'll a day or two, the
attack may be disregarded and no
physician called, and the Eruption, if
noticed at all, thought to be due to
dlsordered stomach, and he is not
kept out of school. Now this child
probably had natural immunity to
scarlet fever, that was handed down
to him by reason of several genera
tons of ancestors having had the dis
ease, but others in the school room,
who did not possess such immunity,
contracted a severe type from the
mild one, and you have well-develop-
ed epidemic of scarlet fever in a severe
form, springing up in different parts
OF the school district at about the same
time, aud you Immediately have a call |
tor thorough and efficient work by |
the health officer
The same conditions hold true of |
smallpox. Through successive genera
tons OF immunity by reason of vac
clnations or attacks of the disease,
most of us have become so immune to
smallpox that the attacks are so light
as to be almost a joke, and no one
wants to submit to a rigid quarantine
when not sick, and with perhaps no
more than two are three pustules, but
this mild attack is capable of trans
hitting the most virulent form that re-
suits in the horrible soaring, or even
death, to people that do not possess
this immunity. And it is this light
form OF contagious disease, when not
quarantined, that causes the wide
spread epidemics and which causes
the high expense account of the health
officer that you hear about every hyo
years.
For the prevention of the inocula-
table diseases, the breeding places of
the transmitting insect should be des-
troycd, also in screening the already
injected patient from these insects. as
1t is absolutely necessary for it to first
become infected, before this insect -,
transmit the disease to man.
Idaho, at the present time, is partic- ,
ularly fortunate as 10 the inoculatable ,
diseases, as the spotted mountain fever
IS almost about the only one that ex-
lists to any extent. This disease is :
transmitted by the woodtick, and is
most prevalent in spring and early
1t is very serious disease. !
running course of about the same !
length and severity as typhoid. 1t is ,
not nearly so prevalent now as it was :
ten years ago, on account OF isolating :
patients as soon as discovered, so that :
more ticks cannot become infected
from this case; also, on account of the =
destruction of their breeding places, l.
the Sagebrush. r
Malaria, SO serious in some local. S
ties, IS almost non-existent in Idaho. {
II IS spread by the bite of a certain {
kind of mosquito, the anapholese. A t
great war is being waged against the
'napholese in the infected communi- Y
les, and places formerly uninhabit S
able by white people have become i
health resorts. A notable example is {
ne Panama Canal region. The French Z
ailed 10 construct the Panama Canal ID
not because of lack of engineering
kill or lack OF money, but from lack a
u sanitation. The mortality in the i
ANAL Zone under the De Lesseups' n
'eglme was simply frightful-so much
90 that the work had to be abandon s
"a, And it is due, not to Colonel lii
roGthalS, who receives the credit. bur h
o Or. Gorgas, OF whom many of YOU h
Ieeyer heard, that the canal was built. | a
ne breeding places of mosquitoes !,
we're destroyed, swamps drained. {
ans and kegs that contained water +
we're emptied, stagnant pools cover c
ID with crude petroleum, so that the e