330  State  Control  of  Diseases.  {Amju™ri9ioarm' 
to  the  central  office.  At  the  same  time  it  was  felt  that  the  list  of  dis- 
eases required  by  state  law  to  be  reported  was  extremely  defective. 
The  following  additional  diseases  were  therefore  made  returnable : 
Anthrax,  actinomycosis,  glanders,  trichiniasis,  rabies,  malarial 
fever,  bubonic  plague,  measles,  whooping-cough,  tuberculosis, 
chickenpox,  German  measles,  mumps,  epidemic  dysentery,  tetanus, 
erysipelas,  pneumonia,  puerperal  fever  and  trachoma. 
This  makes  nearly  thrice  the  number  previously  required  to  be 
reported  by  the  laws  of  the  state.  In  each  case  however,  there  was 
a  reason  which  appeared  to  the  department  good  and  sufficient  for 
requiring  that  the  department  should  be  made  aware  of  its  presence, 
and  the  next  Legislature  incorporated  them  all  into  the  law. 
An  analysis  of  the  specific  character  of  each  of  the  diseases  which 
have  been  added  to  the  report  card  will  show  that  each  and  every 
one  is  justly  entitled  to  be  placed  thereon,  and  that  their  importance 
is  not  to  be  denied. 
Anthrax,  actinomycosis,  glanders,  trichiniasis  and  rabies  are  all 
known  to  be  communicable  to  man  from  the  domestic  animals  and 
to  be  difficult  of  cure,  often  fatal. 
Malarial  fever  can  only  be  eradicated  by  screening  every  case 
from  the  Anopheles  Maculipennis  mosquito,  while  at  the  same  time 
a  vigorous  warfare  is  waged  against  the  insect  itself.  Bubonic 
plague  is  advancing  upon  us  with  no  uncertain  step  and  its  mode 
of  transmission  is  no  longer  a  mystery.  Every  civilized  country  now 
makes  tuberculosis  reportable,  while  measles  and  whooping-cough, 
although  scoffed  at  by  the  unthinking,  cause  each  far  more  deaths 
than  scarlet  fever  and  smallpox  combined. 
During  the  week  ending  Feb.  28,  19 10,  among  the  deaths  regis- 
tered at  the  General  Register  Office,  Somerset  House,  London,  were 
14  from  measles,  4  from  scarjet  fever,  11  from  diphtheria,  45  from 
whooping-cough,  and  11  from  diarrhoea,  from  smallpox  o  and  from 
typhoid  fever  o.  During  the  three  weeks  previous  the  deaths  from 
whooping-cough  were  57,  61  and  53  respectively.  Thus,  during  a 
week  in  which  the  deaths  from  whooping-cough  were  below  the 
average,  that  deadly  disease,  so  little  regarded  not  only  by  the 
public  but  by  the  medical  profession  and  even  by  the  majority  of 
boards  of  health,  out  of  the  victims  of  the  nine  most  dangerous 
communicable  diseases  was  responsible  for  the  deaths  of  more  than 
one-half. 
Disinfection. — The  control  of  contagious  and  infectious  dis- 
