Disease, The Bathtub and the 

 Lumberjack 



A HOWL of protest has gone up from the lumber camps 

 as a result of a statement made by Dr. C. E. Button, 

 health commissioner of Minneapolis, and as the result 

 of a bill introduced in the Legislature by Representative C. 

 H. Warner of Aitkin and Senator H. W. Cheadle of Duluth. 

 Dr. Button's declaration probably was responsible for the 

 joint resolution. The Minneapolis health commissioner 

 declared that the lumber camps of Minnesota were most 

 unsanitary, that the lumberjack was a menace to the public 

 health and that a law should be passed compelling the lum- 

 ber companies to improve the sanitary conditions of their 

 camps, making it especially possible for the lumberjacks to 

 get a bath once in a while, at least. The bill calls for the 

 erection of bathing facilities in all lumber camps which are 

 established for more than sixty days at a time. 



Typhoid The Greatest Menace. 



"Typhoid fever," said Br. Button, "perhaps more than any 

 other disease is the greatest menace that comes from the 

 lumber camps through the lumberjacks, but tuberculosis and 

 other diseases are also on the list. They result from impure 

 water, improper food, overwork and exposure in the camps. 

 The men in the camps are mostly foreigners and they float 

 into the large cities at the end of the logging season and in- 

 fest the cheap lodging houses. Startling conditions were 

 revealed in a recent survey of the New York lumber and rail- 

 way camps, and I have no doubt but that the same conditions 

 exist in the camps of Northern Minnesota." 



A clause in the joint House and Senate bill, providing for 

 the regulation of the camps, says the lumberjack has no 

 chance to take a bath during all the time he is in the woods 

 unless he chooses to break a hole in the ice of a nearby 

 stream. 



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