coal trade bulletin - Clpdigital.org

30 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.
ful disease. This is due to a great many causes.
In some instances to occupation indirectly, inhaling
of irritants, unsanitary surroundings in the
way of ill ventilation and numerous other causes.
I am sure many ol you know of houses in mining
camps occupied by
THREE AND FOUR TIMES
as many persons as there is space allotted for
them. I have observed this many times during
my professional career and have often times wondered
how these men could exist after sleeping in
a room with only a capacity of a thousand cubic
feet of air and go into the mines after regular
nightly experiences of this kind and do the hard
manual labor that was necessary. Of course,
there is but one answer—that their ability to cope
with this situation is on account of their enormous
natural resistance, which will sooner or
later be overcome, and when this happens their
body is attacked by some disease which makes
their recovery practically hopeless.
Ventilation of houses should be the subject of
instruction to the school children and this should
be a rigid requirement. It is not necessary for
a house to be stately, but it is essential to health
that it be comfoi table and that the occupants be
afforded proper ventilation and that the material
that goes into the house be of such composition
that warmth and dryness will be assured and that
its surroundings will be free from contamination.
One thousand cubic feet of air is essential for
each person and less than this will have a tendency
to lower the power of resistance and place the
vitality of those so deprived in a receptive mood
to diseases that would otherwise be thrown off it
such conditions did not exist.
I am often amused at seeing the cards displayed
by the different corporations of towns and municipalities
indicating that an ordinance makes it a
fine for expectorating on the sidewalk. It is more
dangerous to expectorate in the streets where the
moisture in the dirt will keep alive any bacteiia
which may exist in the sputum for an indefinite
period of time. It
IS THEREFORE SAFER
if we are forced to expectorate that we do it upon
the sidewalk for the reason that in 24 hours or a
longer period of time this sputum has been dessicated
by the sun and the bacteria has been destroyed
through this process because there is not
the moisture that is found in the dirt of the
streets to keep these bacteria alive.
It is only a matter of resistance that we all do
not develop tuberculosis, pneumonia, influenza, or
any of these forms of germ bearing diseases. We
inhale them daily. When our resistance is lowered
from various causes, among the most essential
of which I have heretofore discussed, we are
seized by some of these maladies and it is only a
question as to whether our resistance is sufficient
to overcome the virulence of the infection that
may attack us.
Doubtless you will agree with me when I say
that it is only in the last few years that in locating
and establishing camps was the sanitation and
consequently the health of the people given thought
and consideration. I am indeed glad to knowthat
this organization is interested in this subject,
and I shall feel amply rewarded if anything
that I say here today will give the members an
insight as to what their duties should be along
this line in the future.
I will take up the different problems with which
we have to deal when we attempt to obtain sanitary
conditions and discuss with you briefly the
best methods of solving them.
In camp sanitation we have the following main
factors with which to deal:
First, the water supply.
Second, the disposition of the sewerage.
Third, drainage.
Fourth, location and care of stables, pig sties,
and so forth.
Possibly the most important of these is to have
a pure
UNCONTAUINATED SUPPLY OF WATER.
The water should be free from vegetable matter,
ammonia or salts of ammonia, and should contain
no excess of saprophitic bacteria. In epidemics
of typhoid fever the water should always
be examined to see if this is the medium through
which the disease is contracted.
The presence of ammonia or salts of ammonia
in water may not be of itself harmful, but it is a
danger signal in that it proves the presence of
vegetable contamination, for the ammonia is derived
from decayed vegetable matter and upon investigation
you will find your water supply is
being contaminated by drainage from some stable
or similar source. Tne ideal water supply in this
state is from deep wells. You may say that the
deep wells are objectionable from the fact that
the water is always contaminated with iron, sulphur
and possibly other mineral substances, which
make it very unpalatable. I might agree that
this is true if it were not possible to eliminate all
of these objectionable elements if a little expenditure
is gone to for filtration and treatment of the
water with lime and soda and its flltration through
excelsior or some other filtering material. This
water should be pumped to a properly constructed
supply tar* and distributed through galvanized or
iron pipes from there to the places where it is
to be utilized. It is essential that all joints in
the pipe line should be made tight to prevent contamination
from surface drainage. The well as
a rule should not be less than 100 feet deep or of
sufficient depth to exclude the surface and subsoil