THE CLIMA TE OF KANSAS. 691 
INFECTIOUS DISEASES. 
The Missouri State Board of Health recently issued a circular pertaining to the 
regulation of infectious diseases. The document requires physicians to report to 
the County Clerk all contagious cases within twelve hours after discovery. Doc- 
tors are obliged to report the death of patients from such complaints within twelve 
hours after death, and a failure to comply with this rule is made a misdemeanor. 
It is made the duty of the County Clerk to notify the State Board of Health of 
all such deaths that are reported to him, and he is authorized to place a yellow 
flag and placard on any dwelling where there is an infectious disease. An un- 
due removal of such warnings is made punishable by fine. County Clerks are 
also given authority to isolate patients and employ nurses for their care, and 
have the power to compel the removal of persons afflicted with contagious dis- 
eases to such places as may be provided for their treatment by the County. 
They are likewise called upon to cause all persons in the immediate vicinity of a 
case of small pox to be vaccinated. 
Parents or guardians who send children to school from an infected house are 
made liable equally with teachers who receive such scholars, and who are re- 
quired to remove them from school. Failure to comply with any of these regu- 
lations is punishable by fine not exceeding $25. 
METEOROLOGY. 
THE CLIMATE OF KANSAS. 
PROF. F. H. SNOW, OF THE STATE UNIVERSITY. 
The climate of eastern Kansas is not the climate of western Kansas. Any 
discussion of this subject will be entirely inadequate, which fails to recognize the 
fact that Kansas is meteorologically divided into two distinct regions, separated 
from each other by an intermediate area, whose climate exhibits a gradual transi- 
tion between the eastern and the western sections. The inclusion of two such 
widely differing regions in one civil commonwealth has its disadvantages as well 
as its advantages. The striking adaptability of western Kansas to sustain the 
immense cattle interests of that section adds an important element of prosperity 
to the State. But the fact that thousands of new comers from ignorance of the 
climate have attempted to introduce ordinary agricultural operations upon the 
so-called " plains " and have disastrously failed in the attempt, has placed an 
undeserved stigma upon the good name of Kansas in many far distant commu- 
