44 YELLOW FEVER PROPHYLAXIS IN NEW ORLEANS 



5. The Institution of a Systematic Sanitary Survey of 

 each Ward ordered. 



Medical Officer in Charge of Ward. 



New Orleans, Aug. 21, 1905. 

 Sir, 



It is the purpose of this office to have a sanitary survey of each ward. 



To carry this scheme into effect, it is necessary for you to inspect the ward under 

 your control, with the least possible delay. It is not the intention of this office to 

 interfere with your organisation, but to give you the necessary aid to carry the work to 

 its rapid completion. You may, however, have to detach some men from some of your 

 squads temporarily, until the inspection is completed. As soon as the sanitary survey 

 in your ward is completed you will reduce the number of men to the minimum required 

 by you to carry on the duties which have been assigned to you. 



For example, in ward organisation consisting of, say, eight gangs of one foreman 

 and two men each, might be just right, or it might need to be supplemented by four or 

 more additional gangs. A ward with eight gangs of eight men each could be reduced 

 to an average or uniform basis by making, say, sixteen gangs of four men each, it 

 being my idea to reduce the inspection gangs to one foreman and two men each, and 

 have as many gangs as necessity demands. 



You are requested to make all necessary arrangements, in order that the work of 

 inspection can be inaugurated by Wednesday morning, to this end you will engage the 

 necessary labor. If you have intelligent men who can act as foremen in your service 

 and in whom you have confidence, send their names at once to this office and instruct 

 those men to report at the office of the Mayor on Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. (Aug. 22, 

 1905) for the purpose of swearing them into service as Special Officers. Should you 

 desire more men as foremen this office can furnish those required. 



When these foremen are no longer needed to perform the duties of Inspectors, you 

 will ask them to surrender their Commissions and badges, and you will return them 

 to this office, that they may be delivered to the Mayor. 



The pay of a foreman will be $2.00, and the pay of the laborer will be 81.50 per day 

 of hours. 



The duties of the foreman of an inspection gang (and in which you are ordered to 

 instruct them) will be : — 



(i) To make an accurate report of all conditions as specified in the Blank Forms 

 furnished ; and of all work done. 



(2) The foreman will be required to serve notices on the tenant when the cistern is 

 insufficiently screened, and to report to the medical officer in charge the names of all 

 parties having unscreened cisterns ; to notify tenants that filled privy vaults shall be 

 emptied within 48 hours under penalty of the law. 



(3) The work to be done by the inspection gang shall be to repair slight defects in 

 the cistern screening ; to empty all receptacles containing stagnant water unless 

 protected. To oil wells that are not protected, and pits or privy vaults which can not 

 be emptied. 



(4) Material necessary for the repairs of cistern screens, as enumerated in Circular 

 Letter of Aug. i6th, can be had upon requisition through the proper bureau. 



Respectfully, 



J. H. White. 



