CORRESPONDENCE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume I, Issue 34, 7 August 1880, Page 4

CORRESPONDENCE.

intermittent fever ; this water, drying np, leaving the spores to dry and float through the atmosphere.

[We do not hold ourselves responsible for the opinions expressed by our correspondents. To ensure publication, however, it will be necessary for writers to avoid personalities.l

If every settler will take ordinary precautions in the house, farm-yard, pig-stye, dairy, aud outhouses, we shall have no more cases of bloodpoisoning in our midst. Beware of spores. — I am, &c,

HAWERA FEVER TRAPS.

Colonist.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE STAB.

Sir, — It is not an agreeable duty to write about disagreeable subjects, but if we wish to benefit our fellow-men, it is as often done by using straightforward language, and writing to the point, as it is in speaking smoothly, and covering our utterances in velvet. In alluding to the subject of enteric disease, or typhoid fever, as it is called, I don't think I am far from the mark in stating that it is a great disgrace to us, and a blot on our boasted civilisation, that in this place — a small community — a young and enterprising life should have been cut down by this fatal disease. I can •understand people dying like rotten sheep in the ill-ventilated, overcrowded courts of large European cities, teeming with filth, and a dirty, half-starved, besotted population ; but in a young colony, and in a small cluster of houses, called by courtesy a town, with plenty of light, fresh air, pure water, and wholesome food to be obtained with little or no effort, any loss of life by enteric fever, alias gastric fever, alias typhoid fever, alias low fever and blood poisoning, is little less than criminial on the part of some, or all, who inhabit the district. I would fain believe it is ignorance — ignorance in the smallest and simplest details of sanitary arrangements — ignorance on the part of some of our fellow-settlers, that every open cesspool, every pailful of slops, soapsuds, pig-wash, or any other animal or vegetable refuse, if thrown where it can fester and ferment in the sun, and cause noxious smells, or where it can percolate, or be washed by rains into a well or any receptable for drinking water, contains that germ within it, that, if taken into the system, will result in poisoning the blood, and hurrying its victim into an unprepared eternity. Medical works tell us in elaborate and scientific language how the vapors of cesspools and gases of sewers, imperfect drainage systems, &c, cause this insidious enemy to attack our youth. But if these are all the reasons assigned for its appearance, why does it come into country districts, with pure and health-giving atmospheric influences surrounding? I feel that the only satisfactory reason is to be adduced in the sporadic theory. Spores are what we have to fear. These may not alone be generated in thelocality of ourown dwellings, but in the neighborhood of others. Dr. Salisbury divides the spores into two — alga and fungi. He says the alga — a living organism — is the cause of intermittent fever; but to the fungus belongs mucus, typhoid and yellow fevers, cholera — in a word, putrefaction . The least violent or non-poison-ous content themselves with engendering small-pox, measles, and scarlatina. Professor Tyndall and Angus Smith, who discovered fungus in the atmosphere of the cholera hospitals, agree with Dr. Salisbury in this matter. Dr. Budd estimates that 500,000 persons have died since the death of Prince Albert of typhoid fever, and after thirty years' observation, he states that, if preventive measures were adopted, the disease would be entirely exterminated. The Regis-trar-General's report shows that about 20,000 persons die annually of enteric fever in the old country, and probably 150,000 persons are laid prostrate by it. These are gloomy statistics, but it is to bring this serious matter forcibly before my fellow-settlers that I quote them.

Blood-poisoning of any kind in a country like this, with a scattered (population, is a criminal reflection upon us. The preventives are simple. .Cleanliness in person, in house, in grounds, outhouses, culinary, and especially dairy utensils. Milk and •cream, if kept in slovenly-cleaned : pans and buckets, soon germinates tdestraetire blood-poisoning spores. Ifilk, "faun its oily nature, readily absorbs aeents and odors of any kind : hence r&te<iise of fats to extract scents from roses, violets, and other flowers. Typhoid «germs from milk brought •from dirty, -slushy, muddy, disgusting cow-shectaand yards have been traced; but I am 'thankful this does not apply to the country so much as to the close, impure, ; ill-Tentilated cow-sheds in large towns, where the cows are kept for months in the one spot, and fed on grains, .bran, or anything at hand — »evei* seeing d^&sa pa<3 clock. Cleanliness in" the disposal of refuse matter, soapsuds, and other liquids, thrown out at the back doors, as is too often the -case in colonial dwellings, Which, after lying for weeks and months on the surface of the ground, are washed with the first autumnal rains into the wells, is a fruitful source of fever. Cesspools and closets, too close to the wells, so that the sewage matter percolates into the water used every day for drinking purposes, is a deadly danger to be avoided. The appearance of the water is no test, for the nitrates of the soil impart to the water deceptive, sparkling, and pleasant qualities. Pools of stagnant water, wherever situate, are dangerous. The green, slimy scum that grows on the surface of stagnant pools are plentiful sources of germs that lead to miasmatic and