CONSERVING THE NATION'S MAN POWER 



•lot 



the War Department had made available 

 the list of places at which troops would 

 be congregated for training, steps were 

 immediately taken to determine the san- 

 itary conditions existing in the zones 

 around the cantonments. 



The sanitary work which is now being 

 carried on would have been necessary, no 

 matter what locations were chosen for 

 the cantonments. Unfortunately, public 

 education in the protection of health has 

 not become sufficiently wide-spread for 

 the Secretaries of War and of the Navy 

 to have chosen situations in which active 

 sanitary work would not have been 

 needed. 



In the descriptions of insanitary condi- 

 tions which follow, the reader should 

 bear in mind that their existence is not a 

 reflection upon those having charge of the 

 location of the camps, but rather on our 

 people as a whole, who still need much 

 public health enlightenment. 



CONDITIONS CRYING FOR REMEDY 



This need is not confined to any one 

 section of our country. For example, in 

 one of the Northern cantonment areas, 

 located in one of the richest and most 

 thickly populated States in the Union, the 

 report of the preliminary survey showed 

 that the city was absolutely unprepared 

 to house the increase in laboring popula- 

 tion during the construction period of the 

 cantonment. The city had no building 

 code. When the hordes of workmen be- 

 gan coming into town many of the people 

 began taking roomers, and the poorer 

 portion of the city became overcrowded ; 

 men were quartered in lofts ; in some 

 instances there were two or three men 

 in a bed and several beds in a room ; bath- 

 ing facilities were entirely lacking or in- 

 adequate ; ventilation was notably absent. 

 The jail was so overcrowded that fre- 

 quently four men were placed in a single 

 cell. 



There was only one public convenience 

 station in the city. This was so revolt- 

 ingly insanitary as to disgust any decent 

 person. As a result, extensive soil pollu- 

 tion of the streets and alleys took place, 

 and it was no uncommon practice for 

 strangers to seek admittance to private 

 homes for the purpose of utilizing their 



toilet facilities. The toilets in saloons 

 were grossly dirty; the toilets at the rail- 

 road stations were reported to be inade- 

 quate, foul-smelling, infested with flies, 

 and horribly dirty. 



Only 40 per cent of the houses in the 

 city had sewer connections. Open privies 

 in the vicinity of wells abounded. Garb- 

 age was placed in open boxes and old lard 

 cans. Manure bins were generally floor- 

 less, almost always open to flies, and con- 

 tained a liberal admixture of household 

 refuse, tin cans, and kitchen garbage. 



The milk ordinances were not en- 

 forced ; milk for the most part was pro- 

 duced in insanitary dairies, and the citv 

 did not require pasteurization prior to 

 sale. Fruit and food stands were not 

 adequately protected from flies. 



In the soda-water stands and ice-cream 

 parlors which grew up like mushrooms 

 just outside the cantonment there was an 

 entire absence of screening and practi- 

 cally no toilet facilities. There were no 

 means for washing glasses. 



Both in the city and the rural districts 

 surrounding it, the health administration 

 lacked personnel and funds, and was in- 

 adequate to meet the ordinary needs of 

 the community, let alone the' extraordi- 

 nary conditions produced by the presence 

 of the cantonment. 



To quote another instance : In a South- 

 ern city, located in an extra-cantonment 

 zone, the health department consisted of 

 a part time unsalaried city health officer 

 and one sanitary inspector who received 

 $85 per month. The total annual appro- 

 priation for civic health activities was 

 $4,500, of which $3,400 was expended for 

 teams and drivers for the removal of 

 garbage and night soil. 



TWO CARLOADS OF GARBAGE CANS N£ED£D 



Only 47 per cent of the population was 

 supplied with city water. The citv sew- 

 age emptied into a small creek within the 

 corporate limits and one mile from the 

 heart of the city. Sixty-six per cent of 

 the population used surface privies, in 

 the inspection of 1,200 of which, not 

 one was found in a sanitary condition. 

 The garbage collection was insanitary 

 and infreauent, and sfarbage cans were so 

 little used that within the first month of 



