The log cabin Democrat., 1917-02-21
SANITATION THEME OF CLUB MEETING HEALTH OFFICER SPEAKS At Interesting Monthly Session of Commercial Club-Saltillo Road
 Endorsed.

oioi oL Iiie SoIl"dy COlillIleICldl SIuD,
 held in the club rooms last night. Dr.
 c. W. Garrison of Little Rock, state
 health officer, was the principal speak
 CT of the evening, and, following an il- luminating talk on city health prob lems in general and the control of the
 mosquito in particular, Dr. Garrison
 answered numerous questions pro- pounded him by members Of the club
 relating to various points in his ad- dress.
 Dr. Garrison was invited for the
 purpose of discussing with the club the importance of improving the
 drainage ditches of the city, for which
 movement is now on foot. He paid
 a high compliment to general health
 conditions in Conway, which he said
 compared very favorably with other
 towns in the state, but he declared that the drainage ditches which he had in- spected immediately after his arrival here yesterday afternoon were men, ace to the health of the community and sooner or later if not put in a sanitary condition would be responsi- ble for the outbreak of an epidemic. The topography of Conway, he stated, was such as to make it easy and in- expensive to put the city in a sani- tary condition.
 Dr. Garrison related an interesting account of an anti-malaria campaign conducted during 1916 at Crossett, Ashley county, by the United States public health officers in cooperation with the state board of health. Cros- sett, he explained, is town of 2,027 population, of which 56 per cent is white and A per cent colored. It is a ''one-man' town, all of the property being owned by the Crossett Lumber Company, at whose mills practically all the working population is employ ed. An accurate record is kept by the company of all cases of illness and by reason of this comparative statis- tics could be gathered.
 In the year 1915, pr. Garrison said, 1l,17S calls by physicians were made in Crossett, of which 2,502 calls were made to treat cases of malaria. Be ginning early in the year, the num- Der of cases of malaria gradually in- creased, until in October, 1915, 600 calls were made to treat this disease. The campaign was not begun until April, and the number of cases of ma laria remained about the same as the preceding year until after May. Fol- lowing that month, however, the num- Der of cases, instead of increasing, be- gan rapidly to diminish, so that in Oc- tober, 1916, only A6 calls were made by physicians as compared with 600 in the same month one year previous. During the year 1916 the number of visits by physicians to treat malaria cases dropped to 743, less than one third that of the preceding year, while in the surrounding territory there was no dimunition in the prevalence of malaria. While the campaign was intended only to control the malaria bearing species of mosquito, it result ed also in a marked improvement in sanitary conditions in general, and the total number of calls by physicians for all classes of diseases dropped from 11,178 in 1915 to 4,772 in 1916. During the summer in all years pre- vious to 1916, Dr. Garrison said, it was impossible to sit out of doors or on porches at night on account of mos quitoes, but in the summer of 1916 1t was rare that one saw a mosquito Proper ditching and oiling, together with systematic inspection, destroyed mosquito-breeding places and elimi- mated the danger of malaria, he said.
 Dr. Garrison also told of similar survey made on a delta plantation in Chicot county, whereby two methods, one of carefully supervised screening with 16-inch mesh wires and the other by the systematic administration of quinine, the incidence of malaria was reduced from 2 per cent to 4 per cent of the population.
 Dr. Garrison referred to many other important sanitary needs of the city and said that it was as possible to eliminate the typhoid-bearing fly as it was to control the malaria-bearing mosquito. He spoke of visit to an immense dairy near Lexington, Ky, where a dinner was given in an un- screened barn housing hundreds of cows, and although it was hot sum- mer day, not single fly or gnat was to be seen. Dr. Garrison said he wold be glad to cooperate with officials at Conway to improve the sanitary here in every way possible.
 After the discussion George W. Clark introduced a resolution, which