THE TYPHOID FLY 145 



the Finns, the most cleanly of all, were the chief sufferers, not the Ital- 

 ians nor the Austrians. It is regarded as highly probable that this is 

 due to the fact that the Finns lunch frequently during the day on cold 

 food constantly exposed on their tables, while the Italians have three 

 hot meals, and the Austrians also eat hot, recently cooked food. The 

 Austrians and the Italians, I am told, use but little milk, and the Ital- 

 ians are great beer drinkers. The Swedes, like the Finns, have the same 

 habit of eating cold food, and they, too, suffered from typhoid. 



Is it any wonder, in view of the proximity of fever, filth and food, 

 which I have tried to describe as existing there, and which the pictures 

 shortly to be shown on the screen will still further illustrate, that the 

 difficulties presented to the state board of health in combating the 

 disease are very hard to overcome. I beg leave, however, to again 

 remind you that the conditions which are pictured are such as might 

 occur in any mining district where education did not have a constantly 

 controlling influence. 



I have already spoken of the foul smells emanating from some of 

 the camps, and also from some of the locations. We found that in 

 one or two of the camps where there was a breeze there were fewer 

 flies than in others not so situated. But it should be borne in mind 

 that a very few flies, if conditions are right, may be the cause of several 

 cases of typhoid in a locality, and, conversely, the presence of hordes 

 of flies would not necessarily mean typhoid when other conditions were 

 unfavorable for this disease. We visited two or three or more miners' 

 boarding houses where there were either cases of typhoid at the time 

 of our visit, or from which typhoid patients had but recently been 

 removed. The landlady in practically each case not only took care of 

 the patient until he could be given a bed at the hospital, if indeed he 

 were fortunate enough to secure entrance there, but also cooked for 

 her boarders. Almost invariably in every such case we found the open 

 privy, and windows more or less innocent of screens. At one such place 

 visited, the conscientious housewife pointed proudly to her table, which 

 was. with its burden of cold food, covered with netting, as she hastened 

 to explain, to show her intelligence in this particular, " Oh yes, we 

 always screen our table here." But here, and in many other similar 

 situations, the flies were under the netting, crawling in large numbers 

 over crackers, cakes and other so-called eatables, which many of these 

 people keep on their tables all the time. At a house which contained 

 a typhoid sufferer, the privy which received the refuse from the sick 

 room was on the bank of a lake or pond, and this pond furnished 

 water for washing to at least one family in the immediate vicinity. 

 At one location visited there had been a case of typhoid in a house 

 adjoining a dairy where about twelve cows were kept. The doctors 

 accompanying us were known to the people, and one was asked to look 



