460 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



or was heavily laden with debris and every kind of filth, and 

 whatever this water touched it contaminated. As a result, every 

 house in the flooded district was filled to the second floor, in most 

 cases, with offensive matter. In many cases dead animals were 

 found in parlors, and scores of dead horses were removed from 

 dwellings and business stands. Everything was covered with 

 mud. There was not a place where the flood touched that man 

 could lay his head with safety." 



The State work began June 1st and ended October 12th. The 

 result at Kernville, a ward of Johnstown, is a truthful index 

 for the whole district. " With the concentration of twenty-five 

 hundred people in three hundred and eighty houses, all subjected 

 to intense mental strain by reason of the calamity and the radical 

 changes in their habits of living, it is very gratifying to know 

 that during the continuance of the Board's operations not a case 

 of infectious disease developed in the district which should be 

 attributed to bad sanitary condition." In the past history of na- 

 tional disasters we do not read of such gratifying results, but dire 

 pestilence has too often followed great earthquakes, floods, fires, 

 famine, and the disasters of war. 



There are several measures not strictly sanitary, but most 

 necessary, to which the sanitarian should give heed before his 

 own special work occupies his attention. If the officers of the 

 district have been lost, or in any way rendered inefficient, a 

 strong government must be at once organized, and the district 

 placed under efficient police control, that lawlessness and anarchy 

 do not prevail. At Johnstown the people named a "dictator," 

 who decided all questions of government and kept the region in 

 order. The distress which lawlessness produces must not be toler- 

 ated. The organization of relief corps to succor the injured and 

 dying, and to organize temporary hospitals, should receive next 

 the attention of the sanitarian. So soon as the government is as- 

 sured, and temporary relief is progressing satisfactorily, he may 

 advise the proper committee as to what will be needed in the way 

 of food, clothing, shelter, and medical stores. These will be re- 

 quired in large quantities ; but in the United States, at least, we 

 can safely rely upon the country at large to supply these things 

 promptly. For shelter, tents can be had from the State Governors 

 by applying to them. 



At Johnstown the people did not like tents, preferring any kind 

 of houses, and suffered great inconvenience from overcrowding 

 rather than go into the tents. There were two forms of ready- 

 made houses used — one, familiarly known as " Oklahomas," were 

 of two sizes : the smaller, eighteen by ten feet, with one room, and 

 a larger, eighteen by twenty-four feet, with two rooms ; and the 

 Hughes house, which was larger and better built, consisting of 



