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

FIFTH BIENNIAL KFrORT. 91
not SO pronounced by any means the reverse of the above
is
true in regard to typhoid fever, which increases with the
elevation, the percentage of counties in the east reporting
it in 1893 being 33.1, in tlie center 37.5 and in the
west 45.1, and in 1894 35.5, 42.5 and 43.5 respectivel3^
The influence of specifically contaminated drinking water
in the production of typhoid fever has long been well
known, but the introduction of the malarial poison into
the sj'stem through the medium of the drinking water is
comparatively new theoiy.
For facts bearing on this subject
the reader is referred to an article on " Drinking Water
in its Relation to Malarial Diseases" in the Appendix.
is hoped tliat by its distribution throughout the malarial
section the prevalence of that form of disease will be
greatly diminished.
The mortuary statistics gathered from the cities and
towns referred to above, we regret to admit, are not reliable
in many instances. A large number of deaths, we feel
constrained by the very low death-rate to believe, are not
recorded in some of the towns. It is extremely difficult
to secure the adoption and enforcement by the municipalities
of the proper methods for securing fullness and accuracy
although we are gradually advancing in this as in
other respects. On account of their poverty and obscurity
as a class it is more than probable that more deaths among
the negroes were not recorded than among the whites, so
that we feel confident that the death-rate given for the
colored is relatively too low, as bad as it already is.
In 1893 the death-rate calculated from all the cities and
towns reporting, total population, whites 62,900, colored
46,704, was respectively 13.18 and 20.25. In 1894 in the
twenty-eight cities and towns making full reports, total
population, whites 83,650, colored 59,604, it was 10.6 and
17.5. The difference in each year was practically the same,
a
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