Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1932-01-22
What And Where Ard Why.

Dr.. R. H. Riley. Director of the Maryland
State Department of Health, asks Did you
know that
Over $4,000 cases Of communicable
diseases were reported in Maryland in 1881
$4,000 to the State Department of Health
from the counties, and $4,000 to the Bal
timore City Department Of Health; that
This was marked increase over the
number reported in 1890 and that the
increase was largely due to outbreaks of
measles and influenza during the first half
of 1881; that
Certain diseases are called communicable
because they spread from person to person
or are contracted in handling or eating con-
taminated foods from contaminated water;
through bites of insects, or from animals ;
| that
There are over 2,400 physicians prac-
ticing in Maryland, 500 in the counties and
1900 in Baltimore City that the former
report cases they attend or that are brought
to their attention, to the county health
officer, or directly to the State Department
of Health that the physicians In Balti-
more City make similar reports to the
Baltimore Department of Health; that
The reason physicians are required to
make these reports 10 in order that the
health departments may know that dis
eases are occurring and where. so that
measures for their control may be gotten
under way. promptly; that
The reportable diseases include fevers.
such as typhoid, typhus, undulant or Malta
fevers the so-called childrens diseases
measles, mups, whooping cough: infantiIe
paralysis tuberculosis all forms of pneu-
monia; diarrhea and dysentery; the vene
real diseases; that altogether there are
between fifty and sixty of these 'notifiable,
diseases; that
The Director Of the Department of
Health of each State reports the number
and kind of communicable diseases that
occur in his State to the Surgeon General
of the y. S. Public Health Service in Wash
ineton; that ....
D Just as the Weather Bureau sends out
warnings of weather conditions and of
threatened storms. so the U. S. Public
Health Service sends to all City and State
Health Officers, each week, for their infor-
nation and guidance in communicable
disease control, report of communicable
disease prevalence throughout the country
that
International Bureaus for the exchange
of information in regard to the occurrence
of communicable diseases have been
cStdOlloucu d. StAdBCttO pOAuto ouu AOtH q
network linking together the entire civilized
world that s ..-.t..
Washington is the headquarters for the
Pan-American Sanitary Bureau which &C is
as a clearing house for the Western hemis-
phere; the International Office Of Public
Hygiene, which is in touch with the health
activities of forty nations is at Paris; the
headquarters of the Health Section of the
League of Nations are at Geneva in Switz-
land, with the Far Eastern Branch away
off at Singapore. from which news is broad
cast every day of quarantinable diseases
that occur in the Orient: and finally, did
you realize that
This tremendously important service to
humanity really hinges upon the cOopera-
ton of practicins physicians and the
promptness with which they report the
occurrences of communicable sickness to
the Department of Health?
The Maryland State Department of
Health, DR.. Riley said. has the ready cooper
alton of the physicians in this State in all
activities for the control of communicable
diseases, and it has great appreciation of
the services they render.