The Health bulletin [serial] - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

June, 1927
The Health Bulletin
SUMMER CAMP SAFETY
Some Important Suggestions to Summer Campers
By H. E. MIL/LER, C.E.,
Director Bureau Sanitary Engrtneerlng and Inspection
When the warm spring sunshine
caresses the earth and coaxes the sap
in the trees, the violets, the dogwood
and all the myriad tribes of spring
flowers burst forth in a dainty but
gorgeous flare of beauty. Soon the trees
bring forth their foliage, the snakes
crawl out to bask in the sun and the
lizard peeps his nose over the rock by
the side of the babbling brook to watch
small boys tempting the fish with a
dainty morsel of angle worm. By these
tokens we know spring has come.
The days get hotter, and the sun
blazes with relentless fury. Electric
fans begin to whir, bosses get cross and
crabbed, stenographers look weary, and
the clerks in the stores are no longer
courteous. Neighbors cease speaking to
one another and men are seen taking
their meals in restaurants. Most any
afternoon numerous blouses and pairs
of small breeches on the bushes around
the "old swimming hole" furnish a delightful
resting place for the lazy butterflies
watching the diving, splashing
pranks of youth. By these tokens we
know summer Is here.
Man being an animal irks under confinement
and as soon as the hot trying
days of summer come, pines for the
woods, the shady spots, the babbling
brooks, and pools of water. Following
this impulse he seeks a closer touch
with nature. First the Rolls-Royce, the
Packard and the Cadillac, quietly and
majestically roll on to the mountains,
and seashore, the lakes and the woods,
then the business man's sturdy but less
majestic cars move out in increasing
numbers, always away, and finally the
highways are thronged with the rattling,
banging, limping, complaining
family "lizzie" all "going away." The
vacation rush is on.
There was a time when vacationists
depended upon rail transportation and
consequently took their refuge in fairly
concentrated groups convenient to railway
stations, but the highway and the
automobile has changed all this now.
Camps, camping parties, summer hotels,
swimming pools, bathing lakes, and all
manner of vacation party destinations
may be found anyichere.
The improved economic conditions
and improved transportation facilities
have immeasurably increased the number
of persons to be accommodated.
There has been no lack of persons, commercially
minded, to provide accommodations.
These accommodations, however,
temporary at best, and developed
with the sole idea of making the maximum
profit on the investment, often
subject the vacationist to all manner of
insanitary conditions and exposure to
disease, particularly the filth bourne
diseases such as typhoid fever, diarrhea
and dysentery.
At their homes in the towns and villages,
the people of this State are protected
against these dangers. The public
water supplies are under close and
competent supervision of local officials,
checked and inspected frequently by
the engineers of the State Board of
Health, and tested at least once a
month by the State Laboratory of Hygiene.
The sewerage systems are installed
and maintained under comiDetent
and careful supervision. The outlying
unsewered homes of municipalities are
provided with sanitary privies constructed
and maintained under the
supervision of the State Board of
Health. The milk supplies of all the
larger and medium sized cities and
even some of the smaller towns are
under careful and competent supervision
of local officials. A majority of
these supplies are also checked by the
State Board of Health.
Few people have any conception of
the measure of public health protection
afforded at home or what measures