SANITARY WORK IN GREAT DISASTERS. 459 



SANITARY WORK IN GREAT DISASTERS. 



By G. G. GEOFF, M. D., LL. D., 



PRESIDENT OF THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE BOARD OF HEALTH. 



THE suggestions offered in this paper are derived from the 

 experience of the past summer at Johnstown, Pa., and in the 

 other flooded regions of the State, where a large share of the or- 

 ganization of the sanitary measures fell to the writer. Although 

 one ninth of the inhabitants of the devastated district perished 

 and were buried in the debris, along with thousands of domestic 

 animals; and although typhoid fever, measles, and diphtheria 

 existed in the district before the calamity, they never spread to 

 any great extent, and certainly never became epidemic. 



The region was a peculiarly difficult one in which to conduct 

 sanitary relief. Along a narrow mountain valley for twenty 

 miles were scattered some twenty-eight towns and villages, form- 

 ing Johnstown. Of these, twenty were devastated by the flood, 

 which left almost every village isolated from the others, all 

 bridges and roads being destroyed, as also all horses and vehicles 

 of the inhabitants, thus rendering communication extremely diffi- 

 cult or impossible. The members of the State Board of Health 

 were unacquainted with the geography of the region, and with 

 the local physicians, as well as with those who volunteered their 

 services. There were no disinfectants on hand, and the whole 

 appropriation of the Board for sanitary purposes was but two 

 thousand dollars for the whole year. When, therefore, on June 

 1, 1889, representatives of the State Board of Health of Pennsyl- 

 vania reached the desolated Conemaugh Valley, to do what could 

 be done to prevent the occurrence and spread of disease among 

 the exhausted and stricken survivors, the best estimates that 

 could be hastily secured showed that ten thousand human beings, 

 one thousand horses, one thousand cows, together with a great 

 number of hogs, dogs, chickens, cats, etc., were drowned and 

 buried in the debris at Johnstown, and in the drift-piles down 

 the river, while ten thousand sufferers were without shelter, wet, 

 hungry, and distracted. There were slime, mud, carcasses of do- 

 mestic animals, and human bodies everywhere. 



" No pen has yet fully described the condition that existed the 

 next day after the waters of the South Fork Lake had swept the 

 valley. The pen will never picture the desolation that existed, 

 or tell of the difficulties that confronted the inhabitants of the 

 stricken valley. The homes that were not swept away were left 

 in the most unsanitary condition imaginable. The flood in many 

 localities reached a height of thirty feet. This water contained 



