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

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202 APPENDIX.
Rememl)ering how very conservative a rural population always is, and
how suspicious and sceptical a great many of them are of statements
printed in a liook, i)articnlarly when those statements set forth views
that they are loth to accept, and are made by strangers living a long
way off, I concluded that it would be 1)est to obtain the bulk of the evidence
from our own people. With that end in view the following circular-letter
was sent to every registered physician in all the counties considered
malarial
"North Carolina Board of
Health,
"Raleigh, X. C, April 20, 1894.
"Dear Doctor:—The evidence that malarial diseases are introduced
into the system in many if not most instances through the medium of
drinking water is, to my mind, conclusive. The water containing the
germs or plasmodia is surface or superficial soil water. Those living in
malarial districts who confine themselves to water from cisterns or wells
driven or bored beneath the stratum of marl or impervious clay—in
other words, beyond the water which soaks down from the surface—are
to a large extent free from attacks.
If the people of our eastern counties
could be generally convinced of this fact, and thereby induced to act
upon it, the health conditions of that really fine section would be revolutionized
for the better. To bring this about is the object of the Board
of Health. In order to do this facts must be presented to them in the
concrete—not by illustrations from "Asia and Spasia and t'other side o'
Hillsborough," so to speak, but by instances from among their own
neighbors.
I write to ask if you know any facts bearing on this subject
and, if so, that you will write them to me in detail at your earliest convenience.
Give the name and post-otlice of the head of the family having
the experience. If not personally familiar with the facts send me
the name and address that I may write him direct.
"Your kind and prompt attention will greatly oblige,
" Yours truly,
"RICH'D H.
LEWIS,
"Senrtary."
To this forty-two replies were received, seven of which, having no
special bearing on the point at issue, have not been used. Xot being
satisfied entirely with the evidence thus obtained, and desiring particularly
to have as far as possible specific, detailed statements of actual personal
experience, I sent the following circular-letter to every one using
cistern or driven well water whose address I could get
"North Carolina Board of Health,
"Raleigh, N. C, .August 1, 1894.
"My dear Sir:—The State Boaid of Health is investigating the question
of the introduction into the system of the malarial poison through