1893-1894 - The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

AJM'ENDIX. 185
luimber of cases at nu time in the summer of 1893 that the Board of
Health seriously considered the advisability of an investifration into the
causes of these outbreaks, and of suggesting some means for the control
of the disease.
Unfortunately the means for this extensive work were not
in hand, and the only method for the change which we all so ardently
hoped for was to urge the physicians through the BuUitin to look into
causes of these localized epidemics and report them to
Raleigh.
the Secretary at
Earh^ in the fall of 1893 I was in a small town in this State and had
the pleasure to be closely associated with a very able physician. During
my stay in his town he told me of so many cases of typhoid fever among
his people that I was astounded at his statements. At the time of my
visit he had three cases on his list, two in the town and another one a
short distance in the country. As I rode through the streets with him
he pointed out houses here and there where cases occurred and recovered
until I was constrained to ask him if there was a family in the town
which had escaped the disease, and it seemed there were very few if any.
I do not mean that all this had occurred in one year, but in a comparatively
few years, showing the continuance of the poison in the borough.
The town is beautifulh' situated in the hills of middle Xorth Carolina,
and is the home of numerous wealthy and refined people who have
enjoyed the benefits of education and travel; and yet thej" are all under
the menace of this disease, unless luckily they have survived an attack
and are immunized. It was not in my power to demonstrate that the
drinking water of the town and the soil air were the causes of this
lamentable state of things; but the location of the wells and springs that
I saw and their relative position to the outhouses suggested a very
probable solution of the difficulties. The drainage of the stables, cowlots
and places for the deposit of human excreta often seemed to have
easy access to the well or spring. But the water was bright and clear,
and its very sweetness masked the danger and pro tanto added to it.
This fever is such an old acquaintance that its modes of distribution have
been popularly neglected, and a lalxner jaire policy has come in to blind
the people to their danger, prompted by the feeling that these outbreaks
are not to be accounted for or prevented, and must be set down as a
woful dispensation of Providence. My friends, it is a disgrace to the
faith of an humble, loving Christian to laj- such a charge to a beneficent
Providence. The people of Plymouth, in Pennsylvania, lived in a mountain
village, and drank the water collected in a reservoir which was fed
by springs flowing out of the mountain side. They were rudely awakened
to the foct that their homes were invaded by an epidemic of typhoid
fever, and no local cause could be found for its prevalence—so prevalent
was the disease, and so dire the disasters attending it, that the community
felt forced to call on the ."^tate authorities for help, and for iihysi-