The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-06-02
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC j. HASKIN, Director.
Washington, d. G.
THE TRIUMPH OF PURE WATER,


of sunshine in gloomy maze of NOR
tally statistics is an item showing that
typhoid fever is rapidly becoming a
rare disease in the United States.
| Since people have understood that
impure water is largely responsible for
| typhoid, the percentage of cases has
fallen off steadily. When the country
| is thoroly organized for clean drink
ing water, typhoid will be as rare in
occurrence as smallpox. and as much
| feared
deaths from typhoid in the sixty EIGHT
| largest cities of this country. This
makes the death rate for this disease
81 per 100000 population, big drop
compared with the figures of 1900 and
1910. Then a typhoid death rate of
was not unusual for city.
In those days, European capitals
were far in advance of our cities in
clean water precautions. Even in 1908
New York had u deaths from typhoid
and Chicago Is, as compared with
London s., Paris 8, Stockholm 1, and
Berlin 4. Now. New York has brought
its rate down to "a, and Chicago to
fila remarkable reduction-and
many other cities have done as we'll.
Smaller communities for the most
part have not been able to advance so
rapidly. Some towns have underesti-
mated the Importance of pure water to
the extent of thinking they could not
afford the precautions used in cities.
AS for the farmer, dependent on his
own farm for his water supply. he
has been apt to conclude that cold.
clear water was bound/to be sanitary.
without giving a thought to the posi-
bilities of infection. Recently the gov
eminent has been making a special eff
fort to point out to the farmer the
principles OF a pure water supply.
The latest step in insuring pure
water to the public is a ruling by
which the Public Health Service is to
supervise the drinking water on
means that all the eXcursiop steamers
and other passenger steamers on our
rivers, and lakes, and along the coast
must furnish satisfactory drinking
water to passengers.
Boat Inspection.
In the past some of these boats
have been lamentably careless. in
choosing the source of their water
supply. On the Great Lakes some
steamers have been known to draw
water for drinking purposes close to
shore where sewage and drains were
sure to contaminate it. Cases of ty-
phoid traced to trips or~these boats
were common.
Boat einspection by Public Health
Service officials will be similar to
that now maintained on trains. In
spection OF water on trains has been
| in effect for some time and has been
successful in spite of predictions that
agents could not follow up a moving
! train to see that it did not fill it's
| drinking tank from an tunsafe
source.
In another way a body blow is be-
| ing aimed at the typhoid germ. Ty-
phoid iHoculation kept down the
l
conditions, and this precaution is
| gradually being adopted by civilians,
especially those who live in districts
where typhoid is most prevalent.
The trouble with incubation is that
people regard it as an infallible
charm against typhoid and If they
hear of an inoculated person con-
| tracing the disease, they decide that
the process is worthless.
What incubation does is to in
crease the persons resistance, so that
| he is able to throw off a much greater
number of typhoid bacteria than he
| otherwise could. If he is exposed to
| food or water polluted to an extreme
! degree he may take the disease. A
few of our soldiers did contract ty-
phoid in this way, but the number
was insignificant compared with the
number that contracted the disease in
previous wars.
| 1t is an interesting tribute to our
growing wisdom that we do not argue
! that water brings typhoid, therefore
we should not drink water. That was
| the way doctOrS-the most learned of
| their day-reasoned less than a GEN.
fury ago. Only a few medicos VEN
| tured to suggest that water might not
be always harmful-there was so
much of it that it seemed unlikely it
was all poisonous.
AS a matter of fact, the water Of
those days was more apt TO be
dangerous as beverage than not.
| Water had begun to be connected with
certain diseases, but the idea of puri-
| flying it and continuing to drink guam
titles of 1t would have been cried
down as an eXtravagant theory.
The Fear of Water.
People who were not easily aroused
| to the deadly properties of glass of
water were permanently cured of
drinking by lantern slides showing
drops of water highly magnified. On
a huge screen, minute organisms be-
came hideous water monsters, as fear
full as the octopus. These creatures
live in the water you drink" rang
the perpetual moral of the pictures.
Even then some people dared to
distinguish between pure and polluted
water. But it has taken generations
for the fear to wear entirely off. AS
late as 1872, a writer in a London
magazine said:
! What the world really wants is a
man having authority who shall say
There is nothing in the nature of cold
water-providing always it be not foul
with sewage or sparkling from cons
ticuity to a churchyard-which cali
be considered deleterious to health. \
man ordinarily strong. may as safely
drink a glass of water when he IS
thirsty as he may eat steak when
he is hungry"
1t was >just> about then that the ty-
phoid bacillus was dragged into the
spotlight and the intelligent war on
water borne disease began. With GER
titled water a possibility, doctors be-
gan to urge their patients to consume
large quantities as a preventive OF
, the very diseases once vaguely laid tc
the drinking of a glass of water when
J overheated, or tired, or on a full OIL
empty stomach.
Now most doctors say that three
glasses of water. besides a glass al