New Britain herald., 1925-09-29
Your Health How to Keep It.,
 Causes of Illness
Ky DIR. HUGH S. CUMMING Surgeon General. United States
 Public Health Service. f

In early times, before the causes Of epidemic diseases were kno'Sn, the ancient peoples ascribed tpidem- ics 10 the work of the demons or ey!l1 spirits.
 Some looked upon them as just punishment meted ou; to n sinful! world for sins committed. aud manyS Of these beliefs in the sIprrratura.1 origin of disease have come Gown from the early days to oni own times.
 It is not surprising Ina! the ans cient and medieval peoples were ter rified by epidemic diseases, because practically nothing was liUuwn ot their cause or of the means byA which they were spread,
 Today well-informed person knows that if he desires ;o prevent smallpox. either berause Hi the fear of death. or the fear of distigGre st ment, he needs only to be raccinat. ed If he Is recently successfully ,aCcinated, he can be absolutely cer- tain that he Is protected against N smallpox. Bubonic plague is disease of rats. and is transferred to man by fleas which. leaving the rat after it dies from the plague. will bite ma,g or the first warm -blooded animal that they encounter.
 We have had plague on our Paci- fic and Gulf coasts.
 Even if plague should appear in our Atlantic seaports we now know that if we keep away from rats and feas we will not contract plague. + there were no rats or other plague bearing rodents, such as groul squirrels, there would probably b no plague.
 Yellow Fever Conquered.
 Yellow fever at one time created panic in our couthern states and paralyzcd industry and commerceI until the first frost put an end u the fever.
 So great was the panic that manY little communities established shot gun quarantine against the rest 0 the world.
 We now know that one specia kind of mosquito spreads yellow fever, and that we cannot become infected with yellow fever excef8 through the bite of mosquito. Nd mosquit oes, no yellow fever.
 We frequently see scarehead mol tices of the dangers of typhN1 fever.
 In the slums of our large cities we occasionally have a case of ty phus today. It sometimes happen that case of typhus rever is pick ed up at quarantine, or among thf immigrants at Ellis Island.
 Such an occasional case should cause no particular concern--ce tainly it should not cause a panic Typhus fever is carried from on person to another by the bod louse. People who are cleanly, al' do not harbor these parasites hay nothing to fear from typhus fo,"i Disease Carriers May Be Health
 Asiatic cholera is contracted .rx actly as typhoid fever. swaIIowi, water. milk, or food conta minat' with the waste Of some person suf fering with the disease.
 If your local health department with your support, compels th city to furnish pure water an pasteurized milk, you need onl ~rin i,,E your food. t+
 The carrier of typhoid or Asati cholera may be an apparentl healthful individual without symr toms of these diseases. This is pal ticularly true of typhoid.
 The transfer of germs is madl by soiled fingers of the carrie reaching our food, particulari milk, occasionally raw food, suclI as lettuce, which, by the way, an excellent food rich in a certail kind of ytamin.
 No carriers should handle fooF and no person should handle food unless the hands have been thob oughly cleansed.
 There is another measure of prS lection against typhoid, nameA vaccination. Today we can be va{ cinated against typhoid fever arE this is a wise precaution, especial when travelling.
 One of the most deep-seatt fears of all is the fear of leprosy
 
 back to Biblical days, when Il leper was stunned by all his fe lowmen, and stoned whenev found. Today we know that lepro is less contagious than tuberculos but the ancient dread of lepro still fingers and certainly lepe should be segregated.