Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1916-01-20

trained in hygiene and preventive
medicine and whose duty it will be
to keep people well. This happy
state of affairs car be helped a great
deal by our mothers. 1t is your du-
ty as well as the duty of the doctor
always to report sickness of a con-
tagious or infectious nature occur
ring in any family so that the one
suffering from such sickness may be
taken from school and thereby protect
many other children. Take the dis
ease which has been prevalent in
I~ronton and the surrounding country
lately, that of follicular tonsilitis,
which is Of an informative nature;
this disease may not prove very Sc
rious in one child; in fact the child
may hardly be i'll to speak of, yet let
that child mingle with other chill
dren, and some child not so strong
physically becomes infected; it may
and often does become a very seri-
Gus affair; sometimes becoming a
fertile field for a mixed infection
and true ~diptheria resulting from it.
1t is our duty therefore, always to
report such cases and in this way
protect the other children and help
to stamp out the disease. Take the
ordinary catarrhal cold, which is in
fectious, let every member of a
family be housed up in a close, over
heated room and soon the disease
will spread to each member of the
family, even to the cat. Another i'm
portant thing is that of sufficient
light, something which many of our
school rooms do not have. A series
of Investigations carried on in the
state of Pennsylvania showed that
27 per cent of the children had defec-
tive vision; this was not caused by
poor light in school, but it does show
that a great many children do see
with difficulty, and that the light
should always be good. In a great
many of our states and almost all Of
our large cities an expert man is en-
ployed all the time to examine the
eyes of all children who are deficient
in their work to see if they have de-
Efective vision, and if such is the
case the parents are notified; if they
are not able to buy proper glasses for
the child, they are furnished free of
cost. The individual drinking cup
is a good thing and should always
be encouraged. Diseases Of the
mouth are easily transmitted by the
common drinking cup, and dur
ing recent years we are finding out
that diseased mouth and gums are
responsible for a great deal Of
trouble. The matter of screening the
rooms against flies is one that de-
serves more attention than it has re-
ceived in our school rooms.
The common house fly is a carrier
Of many diseases and should be
fought against as much as a contagi-
GUS disease itself. 1t is a medium
for carrying typhoid fever, dyson
tary, kindred bowel troubles and it
has been lately proven a direct car
rier of infantile paralysis. | often
tell my people out through the coun-
try that they had better go without
shoes, if necessary, to screen their
homes. I always have a feeling Of
defeat when / 90 into a home where
they have a case Of typhoid fever
and have no screens.
The question Of outside toilets with
their miserable lack Of conveniences,
vaults, etc, is n that should have
attention, and is easily solved by wa
ter and the sanitary cess pool. One
may say that some Of these things
are impractical and unnecessary; that