The Bulletin. 39 



disease. Manufacturers should build tenant-houses with an eye to health- 

 fulness of employees. Where there are cases of hookworm, insist upon 

 treatment— at the expense of the company, if need be. Sermons should be 

 preached from every pulpit on sanitation. What was good for the Jews in 

 the way of cleanliness, handed down through the generations, is good for 

 the Gentile. Whenever we begin to appreciate the blessedness of health and 

 what it means to our people, What it means in our own homes, we will be- 

 come our brother's keeper as much for our own safety as for the protection 

 of our brother. 



PREVENTABLE DISEASES. 



By Dr. F. L. STEVENS, N. C. College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. 



I wish to talk to you about three human diseases that are preventable. 



Before we consider the diseases themselves, let us consider for a moment 

 two chief causes of such diseases, namely, bacteria. 



Bacteria are very small, mocroscopic plants, the smallest living things in 

 the world. They are so small that it is almost impossible to comprehend 

 their size. They ordinarily measure only one-fifty-thousandth of an inch in 

 length. This is'smallness beyond comprehension. Perhaps it will aid if I tell 

 you that from two to four hundred such bacteria placed end to end would 

 reach only a distance equal to the thickness of ordinary writing paper. 



In spite of their very small size, they are able to cause diseases in man, 

 owing to the fact that as they grow they produce extremely powerful poisons- 

 poisons more powerful than any others known in the world. Bacteria also 

 multiply with extreme rapidity. Under favorable conditions they double in 

 number each fifteen minutes. This means that the progeny of one may 

 in six hours equal more than 16,000,000. 



The two human diseases concerning which I wish to speak are typhoid 

 fever and tuberculosis — diseases which you recognize as of extreme destruc- 

 tiveness in this State, as they are everywhere else. 



Moreover, these are diseases which are almost entirely preventable. That 

 is, we now know enough of them to almost entirely stamp them out if the 

 knowledge which we have would be put in practice. I wish briefly to call 

 your attention to the chief steps which must be taken to lessen the ravages 

 of these diseases in your homes. 



First, concerning typhoid fever. This disease is always caused by a 

 bacterium (bacillus) which always develops in myriads in the intestine of 

 the sick individual. These bacteria are then discharged from the patient in 

 the excrement and, finding their way outdoors, may in some manner gain 

 access to water used for drinking purposes. If water so polluted be drunk 

 by a healthy person, this person is thereby exposed to typhoid. The germ 

 may also pass from the sick person to the healthy person by the aid of the 

 common house-fly, also by infected water coming in contact with milk and 

 thereby infecting the milk. For the reasons given above, the following rules, 

 quoted partially from the leaflet of the North Carolina Board of Health, 

 should be obeyed in all cases of typhoid fever : 



1. Cover immediately upon their passage the body discharges, to prevent 

 access of flies. 



2. As soon as possible thoroughly disinfect the discharges by mixing in equal 

 quantity with them one of the following: (a) freshly-made milk of lime or 

 "whitewash" (unslaked lime); (b) a 5 per cent solution of carbolic acid; 

 (c) a l-to-1.000 solution of corrosive sublimate; (d) a 1 per cent solution of 

 formaldehyde. After standing a half-hour (covered all the time), the mixture 

 should be buried (never thrown on the surface of the ground) at a distance 

 from the well of not less than 150 feet. 



