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Prevention of Communicable Disease: Hence

The consequent expense to this small community in loss of wages and care of the sick was estimated as in excess The annual losses of $100,000. throughout the United States from this disease, which must be regarded as almost entirely preventable, are estimated at many hundred thousand Investigation shows that dollars. milk is usually contaminated indirectly through an infected water supply. Hence due precautions to secure the purity of the water supply is of prime importance in the prevention of this disease.

Well water is frequently a cause of the disease. Too often we find a privy, or rather a hole in the ground containing fecal and urinary discharges, in close proximity to a well, and often upon higher ground. Unless the soil possesses the best of filtering properties, and this is frequently not the case, the well will certainly become contaminated. Infected discharges thrown on the ground may be washed into the well by the first rain storm.

Water which has a bad taste or odor, or which comes from a source that renders it likely to be impure, is dangerous, but unfortunately the reverse is not true. Dangerously contaminated water may be, and often is clear and colorless and may have no bad taste or odor.