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NEW YORK,
507
NEW (FROM
OUR OWN
CORRESPONDENT.)
Sanitation in the Panama Zone. A RECENT report on the work of the Health Department of the Panama Commission gives many important facts in regard to the results of that stupendous undertaking in the field of sanitation. When the United States took possession the entire region was practically uninhabitable except by Yellow fever, malarial persons native to the climate. diseases, bowel affections, and kindred scourges of the tropics had driven out the French and rendered it impossible for foreign-born people to make it a place of permanent residence. The cities of Colon and Panama, situated at either extremity of the Canal zone, were reported to be the two most unhealthy places in the world. Happily, the chief sanitary officer, Colonel Gorgas, was thoroughly competent to solve the problem, having had a practical training in Cuba. He took the position that before any work on the Canal was attempted the conditions must be so changed that labourers would be healthy throughout the zone. The cities of Colon and Panama were at once cleaned, sewered, paved, and supplied with pure water, since which the death-rate has scarcely exceeded that of the average city of the United States. Then began a series of wQrks throughout the zone, such as draining, cleaning, oiling of stagnant waters, supplying pure drinkingwater, and screening windows and doors, and when completed real work on the Canal began with an army of labourers gathered from all parts of the world. The result of this preparatory work and the continuance of close sanitary supervision is that this notoriously unhealthy tropical region has a death-rate even among unacclimatised labourers no greater than in this country. The present health army consists of 2000 trained men and their implements are mainly mosquito and rat exterminators. Of their work it is reported that they cut and remove about 16,000,000 square yards of brush annually, drain 1, 000, 000 square yards of swamps, cut 30,000,000 square yards of grass, dig 250,000 linear feet of ditches, clean 2,000,000 feet of old ditches, empty 1,000,000 garbage cans and many nightsoil cans, and fumigate 11,000,000 cubic feet of space in dwelling places. To this amount of work must be added the constant sanitary administratibn of Panama, Colon, and other towns by removing immense quantities of sweepings, garbage, and supplying pure water, the inspection of upwards of 113,000 persons in connexion with quarantine, vaccinating upwards of 35,000 persons, and, finally, managing all of the hospitals. The net result of this work is that the death-rate of the entire zone in 1907 was but 21 per 1000 of the whole population, native and foreign.
’
Damages for Deprivation of Medicine in u Sleeping Car. The United States- Circuit Court of Appeals states that the unusualness of the facts involved in the following case make it difficult to assimilate them with any well-recognised class of cases of negligence. The facts are these. The plaintiff, occupying a state-room on one of the defendant’s cars as a passenger, had provided herself with medicines to afford relief from the physical pain and mental distress occasioned by her condition of disease. At the trial it appeared that the porter removed the handbag containing the medicines and deprived her of their use, whereby she suffered unrelieved during the night the pain and distress incidental to her diseased condition and was taken from the train at the end of the journey in a state of physical collapse. That the medicine, if administered, would have effected the desired relief was in evidence. The court held that because of the contract relations existing between her and the defendant company unquestionably the legal was imposed upon the latter to use reasonable care to protect and guard her in the possession of her medicines’and to prevent their loss. The court concluded that as the plaintiff was injured in the manner claimed she was entitled to her remedy in the nature of compensatory damages.
duty
Problems of Suicide. suicide has been so frequent, especially during the last year, that it has become a matter of much public interest and concern to determine the real cause and the remedy. A recent writer, Mr. George Kennan, has made an Death
by
the basis being a collection of authentic statistics. It appears that the annual suicide rate has been steadily increasing in this country during the last. quarter of a century. In 1881 the annual suicide rate was 12. in 1,000,000 population and the total number of suicides in. the whole country was 605. But in 1907 the rate had risen to 126 per 1,000,000 of the population and the total! suicides numbered 10,782. Since 1890 suicide has cost the United States, according to this writer, over 120,000 lives. He states that if the present rate of increase be maintainedand there seems to be no reason that it should not be-we shall lose by suicide in the next five years nearly as many lives as were lost by the union armies in battle in the five years of the Civil War. After discussing at length the conditions under which suicide occurs the author concludes. that "suggestion " is one of the most potent causes and that the suppression of the published details of suicides is a health measure to be enforced by authority. The Mayor of a western city has said in a proclamation :-
interesting study of the subject,
YORK,
There is clearly’an epidemic in this city, and although it is mental it is none the less deadly. Its contagion may be clearly shown to comefrom what is known in medicine as the psychic suggestion, found in the publication of the details of suicides. If the paper on which the local journals are printed had been kept in a place infected with small-pox I could demand that the journals stop using that paper or stop publication. If they spread another contagion-the contagious suggestion of suicide-I believe the liberty of the press is not to be considered before the public welfare.
Outbreak of Rabies. Commissioner of the State of New York Agricultural reports that rabies was never so prevalent in this State as during the present summer. He had been compelled to. establish quarantines for dogs in 30 towns. The Commissioner of the Health Department of New York City has issued an order declaring that the running at large of dogs. constitutes a public nuisance and menace to health, and requiring all owners to muzzle their dogs. At one period the Pasteur Institute of New York was taxed with applicants fortreatment. The
Antituberculosis
Legislation.
tuberculosis has assumed the most positive stage among the people. In several States restrictive laws are being passed and Congress has placed the District of Columbia under a stringent law regarding its control which has been cordially approved by the President. The State of New York has gone so far in its legislation that it has placed tuberculosis among the infectious and contagious diseases, thus ensuring the reporting of all cases to the local health authorities. The law provides for the free examination of sputum by the authorities in all suspected cases, the registration and inviolability of such records, the disinfection and renovation of premises after the death or removal of a consumptive, and the rendering innocuous of all tuberculous. sputum. The physician must inform the health officer of his district as to the precautions which he has taken in any given case, and must safeguard in every reasonable way those living in the same house with the consumptive patient, and for his report he is entitled to a fee of one dollar. A decade ago such a law would have been impossible in this. The
campaign against
country. July 20th.
________________
NOTES FROM INDIA. (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENTS.) Decrease of Plague. died down throughout India, the mortality during the months in which the disease is epi-demic having been much less than in preceding years. The centres of infection are few at the present time and some provinces report no cases at all. In the Bombay Presidency the disease lingers in Bombay city, Karachi, and Cutch, but elsewhere its effects are scarcely apparent, and the weekly mortality has sunk to about 100. In Madras th& Coimbatore district reports 15 out of the 27 deaths in the whole Presidency; in Bengal the only cases (17) are in Calcutta, all the districts having a clean bill of health ; in the United Provinces only four districts notify any deaths, and the total number is but 10. The Punjab figures are 121, but except in the Karnal and Lahore districts the The Central Provinces, disease is practically non-existent. PLAGUE has
once more
NEW (FROM
OUR OWN
CORRESPONDENT.)
Sanitation in the Panama Zone. A RECENT report on the work of the Health Department of the Panama Commission gives many important facts in regard to the results of that stupendous undertaking in the field of sanitation. When the United States took possession the entire region was practically uninhabitable except by Yellow fever, malarial persons native to the climate. diseases, bowel affections, and kindred scourges of the tropics had driven out the French and rendered it impossible for foreign-born people to make it a place of permanent residence. The cities of Colon and Panama, situated at either extremity of the Canal zone, were reported to be the two most unhealthy places in the world. Happily, the chief sanitary officer, Colonel Gorgas, was thoroughly competent to solve the problem, having had a practical training in Cuba. He took the position that before any work on the Canal was attempted the conditions must be so changed that labourers would be healthy throughout the zone. The cities of Colon and Panama were at once cleaned, sewered, paved, and supplied with pure water, since which the death-rate has scarcely exceeded that of the average city of the United States. Then began a series of wQrks throughout the zone, such as draining, cleaning, oiling of stagnant waters, supplying pure drinkingwater, and screening windows and doors, and when completed real work on the Canal began with an army of labourers gathered from all parts of the world. The result of this preparatory work and the continuance of close sanitary supervision is that this notoriously unhealthy tropical region has a death-rate even among unacclimatised labourers no greater than in this country. The present health army consists of 2000 trained men and their implements are mainly mosquito and rat exterminators. Of their work it is reported that they cut and remove about 16,000,000 square yards of brush annually, drain 1, 000, 000 square yards of swamps, cut 30,000,000 square yards of grass, dig 250,000 linear feet of ditches, clean 2,000,000 feet of old ditches, empty 1,000,000 garbage cans and many nightsoil cans, and fumigate 11,000,000 cubic feet of space in dwelling places. To this amount of work must be added the constant sanitary administratibn of Panama, Colon, and other towns by removing immense quantities of sweepings, garbage, and supplying pure water, the inspection of upwards of 113,000 persons in connexion with quarantine, vaccinating upwards of 35,000 persons, and, finally, managing all of the hospitals. The net result of this work is that the death-rate of the entire zone in 1907 was but 21 per 1000 of the whole population, native and foreign.
’
Damages for Deprivation of Medicine in u Sleeping Car. The United States- Circuit Court of Appeals states that the unusualness of the facts involved in the following case make it difficult to assimilate them with any well-recognised class of cases of negligence. The facts are these. The plaintiff, occupying a state-room on one of the defendant’s cars as a passenger, had provided herself with medicines to afford relief from the physical pain and mental distress occasioned by her condition of disease. At the trial it appeared that the porter removed the handbag containing the medicines and deprived her of their use, whereby she suffered unrelieved during the night the pain and distress incidental to her diseased condition and was taken from the train at the end of the journey in a state of physical collapse. That the medicine, if administered, would have effected the desired relief was in evidence. The court held that because of the contract relations existing between her and the defendant company unquestionably the legal was imposed upon the latter to use reasonable care to protect and guard her in the possession of her medicines’and to prevent their loss. The court concluded that as the plaintiff was injured in the manner claimed she was entitled to her remedy in the nature of compensatory damages.
duty
Problems of Suicide. suicide has been so frequent, especially during the last year, that it has become a matter of much public interest and concern to determine the real cause and the remedy. A recent writer, Mr. George Kennan, has made an Death
by
the basis being a collection of authentic statistics. It appears that the annual suicide rate has been steadily increasing in this country during the last. quarter of a century. In 1881 the annual suicide rate was 12. in 1,000,000 population and the total number of suicides in. the whole country was 605. But in 1907 the rate had risen to 126 per 1,000,000 of the population and the total! suicides numbered 10,782. Since 1890 suicide has cost the United States, according to this writer, over 120,000 lives. He states that if the present rate of increase be maintainedand there seems to be no reason that it should not be-we shall lose by suicide in the next five years nearly as many lives as were lost by the union armies in battle in the five years of the Civil War. After discussing at length the conditions under which suicide occurs the author concludes. that "suggestion " is one of the most potent causes and that the suppression of the published details of suicides is a health measure to be enforced by authority. The Mayor of a western city has said in a proclamation :-
interesting study of the subject,
YORK,
There is clearly’an epidemic in this city, and although it is mental it is none the less deadly. Its contagion may be clearly shown to comefrom what is known in medicine as the psychic suggestion, found in the publication of the details of suicides. If the paper on which the local journals are printed had been kept in a place infected with small-pox I could demand that the journals stop using that paper or stop publication. If they spread another contagion-the contagious suggestion of suicide-I believe the liberty of the press is not to be considered before the public welfare.
Outbreak of Rabies. Commissioner of the State of New York Agricultural reports that rabies was never so prevalent in this State as during the present summer. He had been compelled to. establish quarantines for dogs in 30 towns. The Commissioner of the Health Department of New York City has issued an order declaring that the running at large of dogs. constitutes a public nuisance and menace to health, and requiring all owners to muzzle their dogs. At one period the Pasteur Institute of New York was taxed with applicants fortreatment. The
Antituberculosis
Legislation.
tuberculosis has assumed the most positive stage among the people. In several States restrictive laws are being passed and Congress has placed the District of Columbia under a stringent law regarding its control which has been cordially approved by the President. The State of New York has gone so far in its legislation that it has placed tuberculosis among the infectious and contagious diseases, thus ensuring the reporting of all cases to the local health authorities. The law provides for the free examination of sputum by the authorities in all suspected cases, the registration and inviolability of such records, the disinfection and renovation of premises after the death or removal of a consumptive, and the rendering innocuous of all tuberculous. sputum. The physician must inform the health officer of his district as to the precautions which he has taken in any given case, and must safeguard in every reasonable way those living in the same house with the consumptive patient, and for his report he is entitled to a fee of one dollar. A decade ago such a law would have been impossible in this. The
campaign against
country. July 20th.
________________
NOTES FROM INDIA. (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENTS.) Decrease of Plague. died down throughout India, the mortality during the months in which the disease is epi-demic having been much less than in preceding years. The centres of infection are few at the present time and some provinces report no cases at all. In the Bombay Presidency the disease lingers in Bombay city, Karachi, and Cutch, but elsewhere its effects are scarcely apparent, and the weekly mortality has sunk to about 100. In Madras th& Coimbatore district reports 15 out of the 27 deaths in the whole Presidency; in Bengal the only cases (17) are in Calcutta, all the districts having a clean bill of health ; in the United Provinces only four districts notify any deaths, and the total number is but 10. The Punjab figures are 121, but except in the Karnal and Lahore districts the The Central Provinces, disease is practically non-existent. PLAGUE has
once more