The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1917-05-03
Sanitation in Home and Community.

! Mrs. H. A. kearse at a recent meet
ing of the Home Demonstration club:
Madam President and Ladies: Let
me take YOU for visit to two homes.
each situated on a beautiful country
highway and not so far apart that
they could not be called neighbors.
Homes with the same opportunities,
vet so different that it makes YOU
stop and think First, as duty al
WAYS calls us, we shall stop at the
home where a little one is suffering
from a malignant disease, and as we
drive up, YOU see the cause of this.
The first sight to meet your eye is
| large manure pile, a very common
sight. and nearby the barnyard,
chicken house, pig pen, and facing
| the middle of all this is the open we'll
which supplies drinking water for
the family. If you look closely you
| will see the pigs wallowing in the in
evitable slop hole where falls the
| waste water.
Then along comes some dirty
farm hand to draw water, maybe for
the sick child, and down goes the
rope and buckket, carrying at least
half the dirt from his hands to be
deposited in the water. Everywhere
you are greeted by the loathsome
house fly and escorted by the same
sight into the unscreened house, flies
coming from every conceivable place.
Nothing screened you say? No,
this man sees no good in the new
tangled ideas about germs. His par
ents lived with flies, so can he and
his children, and besides he needs
the money to put into the latest rid
ing plow to seat himself upon, while
his wife is trudging back and forth
from this same we'll, with heavy
buckets of water. Perhaps she is al
so bending her already tired back
over the wash tub while the husband
is swapping jokes at the railway
station, But to go on, after leaving
here let us go to the other home.
Before we arrive at the house, we
see wealth of bloom, beautiful
shade trees, winding road, and then
little cottage. BY the time we
stop. mother comes .out beaming.
Father is whistling a popular air as
he goes about his work, and the chill
dren turning somersaults on the
green, getting dirty. Sure, but no
stingy tub or wash basin for them,
but a great big porcelain lined bath
tub awaits them. Mother doesn't
have to lift the heavy tubs and draw
water for them!
"Of course, we are invited in, but
not into stuffy 'parlor,' but are en-
tertained out on a delightful screen
ed porch.
After a survey of the premises We
conclude that the father is no loafer,
but a man with sufficient intelligence
to see and appreciate the need for
cleanliness and sanitation.
Now, this mans outfit was not
costly one, but one within the reach
of almost every farmer of moderate
means. The we'll was cemented to
keep out surface water, had water
tight cover and a good force pump.
The land sloped away from the well
and it was at a safe distance from
out buildings and barnyard so as not
to receive drainage from these.
I'm reading bulletins l find that
cheaper and entirely satisfactory we'll
can be cased in with terra Gotta
sewer pipe and cemented joints. The
top curb, however, should be made OF
brick or concrete and extend at least
two feet into the ground, and should
rise above the surface with earth
banked around to keep out surface
water.
There are other styles of wells
fully described in Farmers Bulletin
No. 70, which is free. The proper
disposal of human eXcreta is recog-
nized by sanitarians as the most i'm
portant measure needed to prevent
typhoid fever, dysintery and hook
worm disease Flies breed in filth,
hence the Importance of screening
and preventing their access to ma
nure and human excrement. Farm
ers' Bulletin No. 463 describes fully
the construction of inexpensive sani-
tary closets. Let us all obtain these
free bulletins, study them and put
into practice their plans, and by so
doing make each home in our little
conmunity.a "a sanitary one. When We
reach this ideal, Well pack our trou-
bles in the old kit-bag and smile,