coal trade bulletin - Clpdigital.org

32 THE COAL TRADE BULLETIN.
your privy boxes as near fly and light proof as
you can and put hinged covers over the holes of
seat boards. Furnish boxes to catch the excreta
and dispose of it as often as is necessary by one
of the methods I have previously discussed.
The drainage of a camp site is most important,
and is usually of little expense, yet in my experience
it seems to have been ignored more than anything
else. I can recall niining camp houses
built over creeks, on the edge of streams, against
hill sides, upon
HIGH TRESTLES
with no underpinning, leaving the space between
the ground and the floor open for a first class wallowing
place for pigs and dogs, thus forming an
ideal condition for the propagation and distribution
of all disease-causing germs.
Camps should always be established in high,
dry locations, having in mind at all times the
question of drainage. If this is impossible they
should be made dry by the use of tiles and fillingin
where necessary. Do not allow stagnant pools
of water to exist and cause disease among your
employes.
I have often seen a cow kept on the back porch
or under tbe floor; the hogs treated in a similar
way, or possibly in one room of a house; the
pig pen built up against the kitchen is not at all
a curiosity to the mining camp. This, of course,
is done to assure easy access to give slop to the
pigs. I have seen this a great many times and
I dare say that many of you have had the same
experience. All cow stables and pig pens should
be at least 500 feet from the house. If you do
not have level land the hillside should be utilized
for this purposes. Clean off the hill for 200 or
300 feet and require all stables and pens to be
placed above this line. This not only places these
houses at a safe distance from the camp, but adds
to the appearance of the community. The hogs
should be penned up and the owners should be
required to keep tmem in pens provided for this
purpose. Under no condition should they be
permitted to roam around the camp. The stables
should be kept open and clean. The country
health officer has authority and can be of great
assistance to you in these matters and it is to be
hoped that the new statute which gives the State
Board of Health more latitude will bring greater
results and guarantee more safety and protection
to the citizenship of our state from
DANGERS TO OUR HEALTH.
I do not think there is any question but that we
will see great changes brought about through the
co-operation of the Public Service Commission
and the State Board of Health. We have already
established a laboratory at the University which
is operated in the name of the State Board of
Health, and at which all water supplies will be
analyzed. A rigid investigation will be taken up
by this department and the public will be fully
informed as to the quality of water that is being
supplied them for domestic and other purposes.
We have already accomplished a few things
along this line for the people of the state. Our
work has just begun and I predict, gentlemen,
confidently that before the end of my administration
our state will be able to point with pride to
the great reduction of the mortality and number
of waterborne and other diseases in the future
over those of past years. Nothing will be left
undone to bring about this result, and there is no
reason why we should not have free and full cooperation
by those who own water companies as
well as those who own industries in this state
and who furnish employes with their water supply.
In building your camp you should always allow
;-, small yard for each house and if possible a gar­
den. By so doing your employe has an incentive
to beautify his premises and keep them neat and
clean in appearance and the children have a place
fcr recreation. You surround the family with a
hope of better and greater ideals and then you
have a more desiralne class of employes. Eni
ouragement should be given in the way of prizes
lo the employe who keeps his yard in the best
tondition and who has the greatest display of
garden products. The employes not only have
the pi ize to work for, but it gives them a stimulant
to work*, to investigate, to read and to betome
bettei* informed. Again it inspires them
with the idea that their employer is thinking of
their welfare and is
READY AND WILLING
to assist them in any way he can in the betterment
cf their conditions.
The company's physician holds one of the most
lesponsible positions in a mining community. He
should be made responsible for the sanitary condition
of the camp. His word should be heeded
and his advice adopted. In fact, he should be
made an official with full power to discharge his
duties along this line and his word should be law
in the regulation of the sanitary conditions of the
camp, the water supply, the food supply and evei y
element which goes toward building up a natural
resistance and preparing the employes at such
camp to better protect themselves against the lurking
diseases which are always found waiting an
opportunity to devour the man who earns his
living by his muscle at a period of time when his
resistance is lowered by the continual subjection
of his energies to the task before him which is
necessary in order to provide for those who are
dependent upon him.
There are some model mining camps in our
state, and it would be well worth the time of