The citizen-Republican. (Scotland, Bon Homme County, S.D.) 1???-19??, 1919-03-13

Riding along q few minutes after z
a. m, / happened to look out Of the
sleeper window. The sky was bright,
not a cloud In sight. The sun was
shining brightly. I thought, we are to
have a pretty day.
Twenty minutes later I happened to
look eastward again. This time the
u was a ball Of red fire. We We're
entering a medium sized manufactur-
Ing city n hundreds of chimneys
were belching smoke into the air. hi
sun was less than an hour high and.
the ordinary beam wa unable to pene-
trate the pail of smoke, dust and dirt
which hung yer the city.
1 watched the sun MS we pulled
away from the station, traversed an
other section of the city, and re-
entered the country. The redness of
the ball of fire was gradually trans
formed into the radiant whiteness of
The unobscured sun and presently we
were out into the white light again.
The sun's rays, SO powerful in many
ways, have not much penetrating pow
er. "A few feet below the surface Of
the ocean eternal darkness prevails
and the animal life found resident
there are without eyes. A few feet just
below the earth's surface we reach a
zone to which light does not penetrate.
The amount of dirt in a cubic yard of
ar Is too small to be appreciated by
the eye, but pile up a few miles Of air
and the amount becomes great enough
to filter out the sun rays,
In the early morning and late after
noon the sun ray must traverse many
miles of air to reach the section Of
earth on which the day is breaking or
fading. If the air is dirty not much
OF the ray gets through and what does,
Is without power to kill bacteria. q
This winter the air has been excep-
tlonally dirty. For one thing, we have
mad to burn whatever the mines have
seen tit to sell is, and they have run
In all sorts Of Stag, dirt and genera!
trash that they had no more profit
able use for n sold it to us as coal
Some OF them should be indicted as
profiteers and grafters.
Ihere are other sources of dirt in
the air and smoke only carries a part
OF the blame, but between them I sus-
pect they have added to the death
rates this winter.
The busy season for the city doctor
Is the late winter and the spring. 1t
is during these months that he spends
hours in visiting. a long list of patients.
The sickness which he combats is air
borne in the main. On the other land,
the busy season for the country doc
tor, in most sections at east, is the
summer and autumn, During these
months he cannot get away to attend
medical societies or for any kind Of
recreation. The diseases with which
he has to contend are not air borne.
Even when the late winter and early
spring season is not the healthy season
there Is no such rise in the sickness
rate in these seasons as prevails in the
city.
Last fall the country suffered from
influenza quite as much as the city did.
Many appeals for help came from the
rural districts. Most of the stories OF
recurrence Of influenza and Of high
death rates that are now coming in are
from the cities.
no ma knows all Of the reasons for
the relative health.ness Of the country
III the late winter and early spring. I
think one Of the important ones is he
d~irtiness of the city air. Few rains and
SHOWS have washed it this winter. The
smoke has been unusually dense and
DIRTY n In consequence of all OF this
the sunlight that has been coming to
n city dweller Is not OF a germ de-
stroying quality.