EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



Vol. XXX. Ju^^E, 1914. No. 8. 



Modern sanitation in its various aspects has been neglected in 

 the farm home and in rural communities to a surprising degree. 

 Theoretically, as the Commission on Country Life reported in 1909, 

 " the farm should be the most healthful place in which to live, and 

 there are numberless farmhouses, especially of the farm-owner class, 

 that possess most excellent modern sanitary conveniences. Still it is 

 a fact that there are also numberless other farmhouses, especially of 

 the tenant class, and even numerous rural schoolhouses, that do not 

 have the rudiments of sanitary arrangement. Health conditions in 

 many parts of the open country, therefore, are in urgent need of 

 betterment. There are many questions of nation-wdde importance, 

 such as soil, milk, and water pollution; too much visiting in case of 

 contagious diseases; patent medicines, advertising quacks, and in- 

 temperance; feeding of offal to animals at local slaughterhouses and 

 general insanitary conditions of those houses not under federal or 

 other rigid sanitary control; in some regions unwholesome and 

 poorly prepared and monotonous diet; lack of recreation; too long 

 hours of work." 



This statement is abundantly corroborated by medical and sanitary 

 statistics. Recent reports of the United States Public Health Serv- 

 ice indicate the widespread prevalence in rural sections of such dis- 

 eases as malaria, typhoid fever, and hookworm, which it has been 

 shown are spread almost entirel}^ through insanitary surroundings. 

 Kellorman and AVliittaker of this Department, working in coopera- 

 tion with the Minnesota State Board of Health in collecting minute 

 data upon seventy-nine selected and typical rural water supplies, 

 found that fifty-nine were polluted, and concluded that " both farm 

 and city are suffering from the careless management of rural sani- 

 tation." 



The situation is the more serious since in general the health of 

 the rural population is less safeguarded by public agencies than is 

 the urban population. The farmer and his family are less closely 

 in touch with the local health authorities, and lack the benefits of 



701 



