34 



KANSAS UNIVERSITY QUARTERLY. 



spread of the disease; but the answers were for the most part neg- 

 ative. As to agents other than food, one or two correspondents 

 suggested domestic cats, and there is a case of this kind described 

 in the 1886 report by Dr. Isaiah Miley, of Phillips county. 



A decrease of the death rate of typhoid fever so uniformly fol- 

 lows improvement in drinking water and sanitation in general that 

 the amount of decrease may be taken to measure roughly such im- 

 provement; so in estimating a possible relation between sanitation 

 and diphtheria it is of value to compare the diphtheria and typhoid 

 death rates during a series of years. Dr. Thorne remarks that 

 with the improvement in the sanitary condition of London during 

 the years 1871 to i88g, accompanied by a decrease in infectious 

 diseases taken as a whole and a very marked decrease in typhoid, 

 there was a decided increase in the diphtheria death rate. Statis- 

 tics from other localities show-that the decrease of typhoid due to 

 better sanitation is not followed by an equal decrease in diphtheria. 

 This is true whether cities or countries are taken as a whole, or 

 whether certain districts, specially improved in sanitation, are 

 compared with unimproved districts in the same city. The evi- 

 dence available in this state is presented in the following table 

 compiled from our health reports: 



Tahlk II. 



According to this table there has been no marked decrease in the 

 death rate of either diphtheria or typhoid, except during the last 

 three years of the table, when the total amount of typhoid decrease 

 has been slightly greater; and there is nothing in the table, taking 



