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IOWA ACADEMY OP SCIENCE 
some items in the development of the early period, not to give a com- 
plete history. 
During this time there was no concerted action on the part of the 
Territory or the young state, and indeed there could be none. Each 
municipality had to take independent action, and provide regulations 
that seemed best at the time being. Effective rules and regulations 
did not spring into being full formed, but they were rather a growth 
according to the need and the knowledge of the people. Neither the 
physician nor the layman attached sufficient importance to the common 
infectious diseases. In the pioneer days men’s thought and labor were 
expended in transforming their uncultivated environment into a place 
suitable for habitation. That which impressed itself most forcibly as the 
thing to be done, was the thing that was done. The value of good health 
rules and regulations was not recognized. In every new community the 
establishment of sanitary laws has followed after a longer or shorter 
course of expensive education in which human lives have been uncon- 
sciously submitted to accidental experimentation, with a high rate of 
mortality attending the experiments. Human lives are paid as the price 
for such education. 
The State of Iowa is not old, but its history antedates that of the 
knowledge of the fundamental principals of sanitation. Here, as else- 
where, it was necessary that the sanitary rules should depend, to a con- 
siderable degree, upon a generally accepted belief as to the cause of dis- 
ease and of its spread. The theories of the more educated then, were simi- 
lar to the beliefs of many at the present time who give little thought to 
sanitation. This is indicated by editorials in the leadng papers of the day. 
The more educated popular belief may be inferred from these edi- 
torials. Then as now, the value of cleanliness was recognized, but the 
cleanliness of modern sanitation was unknown. 
The Dubuque express and Herald of the date April 19, 1855, says: 
‘‘It is not enough to ordain that people shall keep their premises clean. 
^ Scattering a handful of lime in one infected locality and re- 
moving a few shovelfuls of filth from another will but mock the anticipa- 
tions of the public, and be the means of blinding every person, who with 
return of warm weather expects the manifestation of cholera and other 
alarming diseases. ^ state of cleanliness both in person and in 
every household and on every ones premises is one of the best precau- 
tions that can be taken. If taken in time, to prevent the manifestation 
of disease.” The same paper on April 24, says: “Every person of com- 
mon sense knows that filth breeds disease, and experience proves that • 
in localities where the people are filthy in their habits, there is more sick- 
