for drinking purposes, and that no well shall be dug or constructed within the same distance from any already existing cesspool, whether upon the premises of the owner of such cesspool or otherwise.

4. That no water closet shall be used or constructed in any dwelling or building until proper provision has been made for receiving and discharging the contents of the same so as not to be a nuisance, or dangerous to public health by the pollution of any wells, or water-courses, or otherwise.

SANITATION.

The word "sanitation " is comparatively new-especially to readers of official documents, and is to most of persons suggestive of measures that are undesirable if not repulsive.

It suggests hygienic laws that interdict many proposed pleasures. It hints at restraints, quarantine, isolation, preventive measures, health laws, health boards and many personal inconveniences. It suggests personal uncleanness, and soap and water as remedies. It suggests that many enterprises are conducted as nuisances, and demands their abatement. It suggests that the water, milk, food, and fruits that we use are liable to contamination, and thus likely to prove a curse instead of a blessing. It suggests that if we have small-pox, scarlet fever, or any infectious disease, we are, or some one else is, at fault. It suggests that most of the ailments that we have, instead of being mysterious dispensations of Providence, are palpable dispensations of improvidence.

Sanitation, like hygiea, may be impersonated as a ministering angel pointing out the roads to sickness; guiding her willing followers into and along the highways of health, and saying to pestilence and pain when menacing her faithful devotees, "Thus far and no further."

Few fully appreciate the value of health and the many are thus unable to properly estimate the kind services of sanitation. Steine says beautifully and forcefully: "Oh, thou blessed health! Thou art above all gold and treasure; 'tis thou who enlargest the soul and openest all its powers to

receive instruction and relish virtue. He that hath thee hath little more to wish for, and he that is so wretched as to want thee, wants everything with thee."

Sanitation, like "preventive medicine," is a broad term, and embraces all the measures recommended, or resorted to, to ascertain the causes of diseases; to determine the conditions most favorable to the incidence and spread of disease; to demonstrate and announce the means best adapted to prevent it, or, having appeared to stamp it out most promptly and efficiently. Sanitation is then one of God's best gifts to man, one of the best friends of humanity; and it is well to enquire briefly as to what it has done and may yet do for mankind.

It has greatly improved the physical condition of the human. family when its teachings are heeded and practiced. It has greatly increased the longevity of mankind and brought to its subjects a more comfortable old age. It has restricted the spread of infectious diseases so as to almost prevent epidemics. It has pointed out to plagues and malignant diseases their "metes and bounds." It has rendered small-pox, that used to be well-nigh universal, almost unknown and unheard of wherever vaccination and re-vaccination are properly resorted to.

There are thousands of physicians living to-day, who have been in practice for some years, who fortunately have never seen a case of small-pox.

It has nearly stamped out scarlet fever, that terrible dread of father and mother, until in many places of England, as well as of this country, years pass without a case occurring.

By isolation, quarantine and disinfection, diphtheria, whooping cough and measles, all bringing distress, disability, danger and death into so many homes, will soon, like small-pox and scarlet fever, be spoken of as reminiscences rather than experi

ences.

The most reliable and efficient sanitary measures against infectious diseases are few, and practically within the reach of all. They constitute a quintette which, if faithfully observed and practiced, would at once greatly reduce the number of cases of such affections, as well as render them much milder in type. The measures recommended are cleanliness, vaccination, isolation, quarantine and disinfection.

While cleanliness, implying clean bodies, clean water, clean air and clean food, is highly important, its importance and its

varied applications are so well known and so generally admitted as to need no further notice here, further than to earnestly commend its faithful and practical observance.

When an infectious disease appears in a family it is highly important for the community generally, as well as for the family so afflicted, that the patient be isolated-be either put into a room by himself or herself, as far removed as possible from the other members of the family, or else removed to a hospital; or else all others in the family who are susceptible to the disease should be removed. The removal of children or adults from a place where an infectious disease has broken out, into another family, is always fraught with more or less danger, because it is impossible to know whether the brief exposure, before removal from the home, even if disinfection has taken, was not sufficient to develop the disease. The great object of isolation and all restrictive measures is to prevent a second case if possible, and by prompt and thorough isolation this may generally be done, even where there are several children in the family.

With isolation, quarantine of the whole premises should at once be established, rigidly maintained, and only released by the proper health authority upon assurance of the complete recovery of the last case, the lapse of at least fifteen to seventeen days additional after such recovery, and thorough disinfection of the person and belongings of the inmates and of the premises.

This word "quarantine" is a terrible bug-bear to most persons. It should not be. It is a misfortune to have the sickness -a misfortune resulting generally from the wanton carelessness of some one else, or of the family afflicted, by improper exposure. The quarantine card is not a disgrace. It is but a signal of danger a warning to others-especially to those having children, that there is danger to be avoided. The quarantine affords the mother a rest, generally a much-needed rest, from the exacting weariness of the customary social functions. It shuts her up with her children and gives the parents and children a splendid and too-often-needed opportunity to get acquainted with each other; and it also affords an object lesson in sanitation and preventive medicine that has a most salutary effect, not only upon the members of the family, but upon the community as well.

The last measure suggested is disinfection; and it is also a

highly important, if not the most important, measure of protection. Many imagine that disinfection means the removal of some foul odor-deodorization. It means the destruction, as completely as possible, of the germs of disease-the use of a germicide. Comparatively few of the so-called "disinfectants" so persistently advertised for commercial purposes are in any way reliable. The number of reliable disinfectants are very few. They are sunlight, heat, carbolic acid, bichloride of mercury, sulphur, quick-lime and formaldehyde. The last named has rapidly grown into public as well as scientific favor. Elsewhere in this report will be found an extended consideration of it. The means of application of these agents are simple, and should be known and promptly explained by any competent physician, or by the health officer of any local board of health.

Don't forget that cleanliness, vaccination, isolation, quarantine and disinfection, if faithfully observed, will save the people of the state millions of dollars annually.

THE IOWA HEALTH BULLETIN.

No one agency employed by the health department of the State has been more productive of good than the publication of THE IOWA HEALTH BULLETIN.

Issued as it is monthly it carries into thousands of homes information respecting sanitary matters that is fresh and from the best possible sources.

Copies are sent to all the district judges, to all county attor neys, to county clerks, to county superintendents of public schools, to all city and township clerks, to health officers, to mayors, to local health boards, to the superintendents of district schools, to the colleges and public institutions of the State, to libraries and to a great many physicians and laymen who ask for it. It is also sent in exchange to state boards, to sanitary associations and to sanitary publications, as well as to our representatives in Congress and to the members of our Legislature, requiring an edition of six thousand copies. It is the official organ of the Board, and in addition to the proceedings of the Board at its quarterly meetings it furnishes short, practical articles upon hygiene and sanitation that are not only

educational but are stimulative and encouraging by showing what has been done, what is now doing and what can be done by well directed effort in the way of preventing and stamping out entirely many of the infectious diseases that have no right to exist in any civilized community.

Though the publication of the BULLETIN entails a great deal of additional work upon the Secretary the expense is comparatively light and is entirely within the appropriation.

FORMALDEHYDE.

Every community and especially boards of health are interested in any and all measures tending to decrease the danger from contagious and infectious disease.

One of the most important of them is that of disinfection whereby the germs of disease are destroyed. Hitherto dependence has been had largely upon heat, and vapors generated from various substances, principally sulphur. The latter has been used principally owing to its accessibility and convenience, but results have been unsatisfactory.

1.

2.

Because it is unreliable as a germicide.

It injures fabrics and wall paper.

3. It is peculiarly obnoxious to respiration, rendering rooms in which it is used, unfit for use for considerable time. Sanitarians and hygienists were therefore ready and pleased to receive the announcement of the discovery by Trillat, in 1890, of a process for evolving a gas (Formaldehyde CH,O) from methylalcohol, which will destroy disease germs without damage to rooms, injuring fabrics, destroying colors, or tarnishing metals, except iron and steel. Possessing the highest germicidal properties, it has rapidly advanced to the front rank as an antiseptic, and become the ideal disinfectant. Its vapor almost instantly penetrates every crevice of a room, floors, bed clothing, wardrobes, closets, rendering innocuous all infectious materials. The accidental inhalation of its vapor, or even drinking the solution will not result injuriously. All of which commends it for use in every day life. Exhaustive experiments in every direction have been made, and the universal decision is that formaldehyde is the disinfectant par excellence.