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BUTTER COLOR KILLED CHILD*

The death of the infant child of A. F. Summey and wife at Seybert should have more than the passing notice given last week that he died from the effects of drinking butter coloring. The cause of his death should be impressed upon every housewife who colors butter, for while the coloring may be harmless when used as directed, it should be kept out of reach of children.

Mrs. Summey kept the butter coloring on a high shelf, but little Arnold, childlike, climbed up on a chair and hunting for something to eat or drink, found the bottle, and had drank about a tablespoonful of the contents before he was noticed by his mother.

This was between 8 and 9 o'clock on Monday morning, February 12th. The mother gave the child some milk as an antidote, but at noon the child began to vomit, and Dr. F. C. Wade of Lima was called. He arrived at 2 o'clock, but in the meantime the coloring matter had been absorbed by the blood and acted as a poison.

The child was nearly exhausted, but rallied under the doctor's treatment, and was much better and able to play a little next morning, but on Wednesday morning, the second day after drinking the coloring matter, he died suddenly in his mother's lap. Dr. Wade and Dr. Hunt of Shipshewana were called, and it was the opinion of each that the direct cause of death was heart failure brought on by poisoning from drinking the butter coloring.

The color was made by Wells, Richardson & Company, and is used extensively to bring butter up to the standard color in both dairies and on the farm all over the country. A pamphlet wrapped around the bottle contains the printed certificates of chemists that it is harmless in butter; but the following warning appears on the label: "Caution— This color is in concentrated form and should be used for no purpose other than coloring butter, as directed. Keep it out of the reach of children."

The composition is given on the label as olive flavored cotton seed oil, annato seed and azo compound.

Dr. Hunt took the bottle from which the child drank to his office, and will analyze the contents left in it. Dr. Wade intends to bring the case before the next meeting of the county medical society.

Possibly the color is not poisonous when used in butter, but for ourselves we would prefer to take our butter natural or use oleomargerine, from which coloring is excluded by law. And we would suggest that the farm might be a good place to begin reform in the matter of coloring and adulteration of food products.-Lagrange Standard, March I, 1906.

THE DUTIES OF UNDERTAKERS

The following is a copy of a circular sent to every undertaker in the state so far as we could obtain their addresses:

Des Moines, June 26, 1906. Chapter 109, laws of the Thirty-first General Assembly, relating to the registration of vital statistics, contains the following provision relative to reporting deaths:

Sec. 2. The undertaker or the person in charge of the funeral of any person dying in Iowa, shall cause a certificate of death to be filled out, with all personal particulars contained in the standard blanks adopted by the U. S. Census Bureau, and with a statement of cause of

*From Monthly Bulletin, Indiana State Board of Health.

death by attending physician, or in his absence, by the health officer or coroner, and shall file it with the State Registrar on or before the 5th day of each month for the month preceding and no sexton or superintendent of cemetery shall permit interment and no railroad or other transportation company shall permit shipment of the body unaccompanied by such certificate of death.

In addition to the certificate of death forming a part of the yellow or white transportation “paster," the undertaker shipping the body must show the station agent the regular "standard blank" properly filled out, and furnish him with a duplicate of the same to be presented, by the person accompanying the remains, to the sexton or cemetery superintendent at the place of interment.

When the body is not to be transported the undertaker having filled out the death certificate (V. S. D.) in due form must present it to the sexton or superintendent of the cemetery, or to the superintendent of a state institution having an institutional burying ground, or if in the country to the grave digger or trustees of the graveyard and receive from him, or them, a burial permit, the form to be prescribed by the State Registrar. These burial permits will be furnished to the undertakers and by them to the sextons or cemetery superintendents.

These death certificates shown to the cemetery authorities are to be retained by the undertaker until the 5th day of each month when all issued for the full calendar month, immediately preceding, shall be sent to the State Registrar.

The State Registrar of Vital Statistics will promptly furnish to all undertakers whether licensed embalmers or not, so far as he can obtain their addresses, all the blanks necessary for the prompt and proper discharge of their duties. The law goes into effect July 4th.

The following are the penalties for refusing or neglecting to comply with the law:

Sec. 8. Any person acting as undertaker, sexton, agent of a transportation company, or other person, violating any of the provisions of this act shall be fined not less than ten dollars ($10.00) and not more than one hundred dollars ($100.00) or be imprisoned not more than sixty (60) days or be subject to both fine and imprisonment at the discretion of the court. It shall be the duty of the prosecuting attorney in each county upon complaint of the State Registrar to prosecute in such cases and the State Registrar shall endeavor to see that this act is uniformly and officially executed thruout this state.

This circular is being sent to every undertaker whose address we have. Please file your application for blanks at once and the requisition will be filled as promptly as possible in the order received. Use the V. S. D. blanks you now have until you receive the new ones. As the State Registrar has no record of the sextons or superintendents of cemeteries or graveyards, undertakers will serve their own interests and save delay by informing such sextons, etc., of their duties under the law, and by supplying them with burial permits (V. S. X.) which may be obtained from registrars and sub-registrars whose duties as such end on July 3d; or these permits may be obtained from the undersigned. J. F. KENNEDY, State Registrar Vital Statistics.

THE CRUSADE AGAINST TUBERCULOSIS

The Journal of Outdoor Life, published at Trudeau, N. Y., in the Adirondack Mountains, has been made the official organ of the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis, of which Dr. Herman M. Biggs, Medical Director of the New York City Health Department, is president. The memberrship of the association includes

the leading workers in the field of tuberculosis, both lay and professional, throughout the United States and Canada.

The Journal of the Outdoor Life aims to be helpful to persons suffering from or having a tendency toward lung trouble. It deals with the outdoor treatment of tuberculosis in an intelligent and scientific manner and, while not advocating self-treatment by the laity, or attempting to supplant personal medical advice, it points out some of the common pitfalls that beset the unwary health-seeker. It advocates fresh air, nourishing food, carefully regulated exercise and competent medical supervision.

The Journal of the Outdoor Life is not devoted exclusively to the subject of tuberculosis, but aims to publish readable, practicable, and useful articles on how to get the most benefit, satisfaction and happiness from an outdoor life.

The subscription price is one dollar a year, or ten cents a copy.

DISINFECTION OF PHYSICIANS' HANDS

By Paul Shekwana,* Bacteriologist of the Iowa State Board of Health, Iowa City, Iowa

In these enlightened days it is common not only among doctors and scientific people but also among ordinary public, to say, disinfect and sterilize everything in order to get rid of bacteria and avoid infection. This saying is perfectly true and should be observed by everybody, because any person, whether a man or woman, child or old, physician or not, who is infected with a particular disease may become a source of infection to the community. The author, however, believes that this saying is much more applicable to all practicing physicians than to the rest of people. This announcement may sound very startling but nevertheless it is perfectly true and is founded on the author's personal observations and experiments, that is to say, he has found that the hands of practitioners are always more dangerous than those of other people.

We know that the hands of everybody are full of germs, but fortunately they are not disease-germs. While in case of a practicing physician who treats various infectious diseases many of these germs are disease-producing micro-organisms and he may by contact transfer them to other people.

He starts on his visit and sees the first patient, from there he goes to see the second one and so on. Is he not carrying the germs of the first patient to the second, and the germs of the second patient to the third, etc.? This transmission of germs is more possible with a physician than with an ordinary man, since the doctor has not only to see a patient, but also to handle and examine him, consequently a physician's hands ought to be always kept sterile. Should his hands be not sterile, is he not becoming a very dangerous source of infection to his own family as well as to the rest of his community? Is it not for the very reason that quarantine is established in a house where an infectious disease exists, and people are prevented from going to that house. because they might get infected and infect others? Would not this be true and even worse with a physician who goes to see the patient and touches him with his unsterile hands? Therefore, the best and only remedy for this is, that every practitioner should have on him a small bottle containing some disinfectant. As soon as he starts on his visit he should disinfect his hands in order to make them sterile. After he examines his first

* Recently accidentally killed at Iowa City.

patient and leaves the house he should put some of this disinfectant on his hands again in order to kill the bacteria which might have fallen on his hands from the first patient, and in that way he will avoid infecting the second patient with the first patient's disease and so on. This system will make it very safe for the physician himself, his family, and for all those who come in contact with him. In all civilized countries and among enlightened people of the present days, this system of self-disinfection will make a physician much more prominent and trustworthy, because people will realize that they will not be infected with various diseases which the physician has been treating and he will no doubt have many more people come to him than to one who is careless about infection.

As to the disinfectant to be used, is a matter of choice. The author, from personal experiments on his own hands, as well as on other people, can recommend the following disinfectants:

A I in 1000 solution of bichloride of mercury will sterilize the hands in from five to ten minutes.

A solution of from 4% to 5% carbolic acid will act in from ten to fifteen minutes in a similar manner.

A 2% solution of lysol will act in about ten minutes, and render the hands sterile.

Of course there is a difference between different hands, the rougher the hands the longer it will take the disinfectant to act. None of these above mentioned solutions are injurious to the hands, and for instance, if some people find that a 4% to 5% solution of carbolic acid is a little too strong, a little alcohol mixed with it will make it pleasant for application without impairing the disinfecting properties of the solution, or better still, it may be mixed with a little glycerin.

If this self-disinfecting system were to be practiced by every physician, a practitioner would himself never catch a disease or transfer it to others

BEEF AS FOOD

"The Dietic and Hygienic Gazette" has been publishing some very interesting articles upon, Food: Its Relation to Health and Disease," contributed by Drs. Ephraim Cutter of Boston and John Ashburton Cutter of New York. In the March number of the Gazette we find the following recapitulation of the goodness of beef:

a. Milk, an animal food, is the second natural food to the new-born babe, air being the first.

b. When the teeth appear, beef juice and boiled beef pulp are the best foods.

C. Beef-eating races have ever stood at the front, vegetable eaters taking the second place.

d. Beef-eating nations do not present leprosy, as vegetable-eating nations do.

e. Beef, properly cooked, with water, can be lived on solely, longer than any other food, animal or vegetable, and the normal health retained. f. Beef is quickly and easily digested; the stomach is a lean meat digesting organ.

g. Beef has cured grave chronic diseases, when vegetable food has brought them on.

h. Beef confers more force and staying powers than any vegetable food.

j.

i. Beef is a Bible clean food, fed to Hebrew priests, and Jews now. Beef has made bad blood good in forty-eight hours and less. They remark further: "There are differences in the goodness of beef

as everyone knows, according to the cuts, which our government notes as follows: (a) rump, (b) socket, (c) top sirloin, (d) small end sirloin, (e) first cut ribs, (f) second cut ribs, (g) third cut ribs, (h) first cut chuck ribs, (i) second cut chuck ribs, (j) third cut chuck ribs, (k) first cut neck, (1) second cut neck, (m) third cut neck, (n) hind leg, (o) second cut round, (p) first cut round, (q) flank, (r) top of sirloin, (s) navel, (t) plate, (u) brisket, (v) cross ribs, (w) shin (foreleg), (x) shoulder clod. Here are twenty-four varieties of cuts in the same animal, the best of which is the rump, provided it is tender and well freed from the tough white fibrous tissues. The pure, muscular fibre of beef is its most nutritious part, standing at the highest rank of beef preparations."

TEACHING HYGIENE IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

It is important to note how readily children become interested in the subject of hygiene when properly presented in the public schools. Every thoughtful person must admit that its importance is greater than that of any other study, not even excepting any of the three old-fashioned “r's” —reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic.

A group of tenement house children in Boston known as "The Hawthorne Club" have a "board of health" consisting of a girl of eleven and two boys of ten. The following rules were made by this board and show that the lessons in hygiene have been remarkably well assimilated. In fact there are many college graduates and people in middle life who would find such a set of rules as the following of real value:

If you are a consumptive don't spit on the floor or street.

the spit.

Keep yourself neat and tidy and don't bum around.

Destroy

Eat simple and nourishing food, such as plain meat, fruit, eggs, crack

ers, cream and cereals.

Wash your face, hands, ears, teeth and nails.

In summer take two baths a week, and a sponge bath every day. When you get up in the morning take a few breathing exercises. Take plenty of exercise.

Take plenty of regular sleep.

Don't eat between meals.

Don't eat cheap candy and pickles.

Don't let anyone use your own towel.

Keep clean houses.

Try and have sunny rooms. Dark and damp rooms are not healthy. Children from five to ten should take special care of themselves.

Older children should help the little ones keep clean.

Keep fresh air in your house.

Dirt is bad.

Flies are bad.

Don't let garbage stand around.

Clean your closets steady.

Change your clothes every week promptly.-The Healthy Home.

COMMENDABLE MAXIMS

As we have been celebrating the two hundredth birthday of one of America's greatest patriots, philosophers and statesmen-Benjamin Franklin—we have thought it might be interesting to present some of his maxims as well as some of those of two other great Americans. The