The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1917-03-08
HEALTH CONDITIONS IN
GARRETT COUNTY
Deputy State Health Officer Riley
Reports to Commission.

Board of County Commissioners Mon
day from Deputy State Health Officer
DR.. r. II. Riley, of Cumberland, and
being deemed matter of public i'm
portance is given space in the columns
of The Republican
To the Commissioners of Garrett county.
Oakland Nd.
GENTLEMEN: hereby report to you
in an informal manner the work &C
complished by the public health Co.
operative Laboratory in Cumberland
during the year nineteen hundred and
sixteen, for Garrett county.
You can readily appreciate the diff.
ficulties to be met with in attempting
to show on paper the value Of work
directed toward the prevention of dis
eases. The dollar symbol used as
means of comparison and in establish
ing values IN most transactions will not
serve our purpose in this connection.
will call attention to some things that
have been done by the laboratory
through the county health officer and
will point out some of its possibilities
in the succeeding paragraphs of this
report.
We have reasonable assurance that
diseases have been detected in their be-
ginning and that cases have been in
this way prevented by this diagnostic
measure. Just how many cases have
been prevented in this county will
never be known. We know that there
is fairly definite death toll in all COM
municable diseases. For instance in
/ typhoid fever as reported in this coun-
try about ten per cent of the cases die.
If by requiring sanitary closets in all
owns and villages and in homes where
cases of typhoid have been. by giving
/ typhoid vaccine to all contacts, and in
sisting on disnfection of all discharges
from the sick, fifty cases of typhoid
fever are prevented, then it can be
pretty safely assumed that five lives
have been saved from one disease that
/ is preventable.
During the year quite a number of
/ tuberculosis or consumDtive cases have
been positively diagnosed. Previous to
/ this laboratory diagnosis an unsuspect-
ing public was being exposed to this
most dangerous infection and quite
probably large number of persons IN
contact with these cases have already
been infected. These cases are now
under surveillance and have been sent
to the sanatorium or have been provided
with sputum cups. disinfectant, and
other conveniences by the county health
officer in order that the public may be
properly safeguarded.
I The laboratory is the physicians and
health officers means of establishing a
ready diagnosis in great many dis
( eases. Diseases will present them
selves in epidemic proportions and Of
tentimes tax the ability of the best
| physicians unless provided with all
modern aids such as laboratories give.
/ The people Of this state or any other
state have the most confidence not in
the physicians that makes diagnosis
right ''off the bat" but in the man that
uses every available aid in arriving at
/ his conclusions
/ A report came from laymen in one
town of Garrett county early in the
summer that infantile paralysis was
running riot there and no effort was
being made by the health authorities to
control it. Investigation developed the
fact that there had been two deaths
from this disease and that from twenty
to twenty-five children and adults were
sick from it, The water supply was
examined, the milk and ice cream, and
the discharges from patients them
selves. The laboratory showed that
these people were victims of dysentery
and not infantile paralysis. After the
I flies had been screened from the closets
and the sick room prophylaxis
carried out the epidemic came to an
end. There is enough known about
intestinal diseases and many of the
other communicable diseases to handle
them when the diagnosis has been es-
tabhshed.
In some forms of infantile paralysis
the paralytic symptoms resemble very
closely the paralysis Of diptheria and
laboratory diagnosis is the means and
the only one we have of quickly and
positively excluding diphtheria which is
done in the absence of diphtheria bacilli.
If diphtheria is the cause of the trouble
then antitoxin must be gwen as a rene
dial measure to the patient and to the
other children for immunizing purposes.
All public water supplies IN the coun-
ty have been examined at regular in
tervals by the laboratory. Private sup
plies have been examined when cases
of typhoid fever existed on the pre-
misses. Proper attention to water sup
| plies will materially lessen the nossi