The Punta Gorda herald. [volume] (Punta Gorda, Fla.) 1893-1958, 1916-03-16
Is 1t a Useless Law?

La W . ilub JllC lltGNl VI tilCIli
ii they are not enforced?
The Florida Legislature at the
session of 1915, at the urgent sug-
gestion of the State Board of
Health, enacted a law-Chapter
6953, Laws of Florida-which is,
or should be, one of the most i'm
portant Acts ever enrolled on the
statute books of the state for the
prevention of disease, and it has
a meaning for every citizen of
Florida, permanent or transient.
1t provides that it shall be a
mlsdemeanor to operate a hotel,
boarding house, restaurant OF
lunch counter without screening
every door, window or other OPP.
ening. in the dining room, kitchen
or passage leading to them, with
wire netting of a mesh small e.
nough to prevent the admission
or flies.
1t makes it miSdemeanor to
sell or expose for sale food in any
meat or butcher shop, grocery
fruit stand, bakery or other place
which is to be eaten raw or which
is to be consumed without cook.
ing, and to operate any dining OF
buffet car within the state with,
out screening such eating places
with wire netting which will pre-.
vent the admission of flies.
The penalty upon conviction is
a fine not to exceed fifty dollars
or Imprisonment not longer than
three months for each proven vio-
latiOn.
This law, while it might posi-
bly, have been better, is a vast i'm
provcment on any previous at
tempt to protect the people of the
state through these channels from
the infection of typhoid fever and
some other filth produced diseas-
es, if-(note the fit shall be
enforced.
Florida s Board of Health has
been working for more than
twenty-five years to make the
state better place to live in, to
prevent disease and to bring to
all the people an intimate knowl-
edge how to help themselves to
longer life, to better sanitary sur
roundings and more efficient
working days in each year. This
board has succeeded fairly well
in its ver-ending labor, and it is
shown by the fact that when cpl
demic threatens, the people throw
up their hands and surrender in a
blind faith to its leadership out
of the emergency into which their
own disregard of its warnings has
plunged them.
True it is that the business of
the board is to take charge in e.
Emergencies that threaten disaster
through disease, but it is equally
its mission to advise and warn
when no immediate danger men,
aces, in order that emergencies
may not come. In times of stress,
municipal and county authorities,
solicitors of criminal and circuit
courts, sheriffs and all the rest,
willingly use their full authority
to aid the board in its enforce
ment of law and safety measures.
Why are they not as ready TO
back the board in its work of pre-
vention when no danger is in
sight? 1t is a fact that, with few
rare exceptions, they are as in
different as a Georgia rabbit to
the war in Euroisa.
The deaths in Florida, from ty-
phOid fever alone each year, ex-
ceed those from yellow fever in
any epidemic in the state of which
there is any record. This dis
ease is carried to the new victim
by flies, which founder in the ex-
creta of the patient and deposit
the germs of typhoid in or on the
food which is eaten by healthy
persons, who thereby are doomed
to suffering with pretty strong
chances of death. Disgusting,
isn't it? Yet it is the purpose of
this Chapter 6953 to aid in stop
ping this cycle of disease, and the
Board of Health is asking the