Railroad Fatalities in This Country.-The Interstate Commerce Commission has given out the statistics relating to the casualities to passengers and railroad employees during the quarter ending March 31, 1907. The total number during this period was 20,563, as compared with 20,944 reported in the preceding three months-a decrease of 381. The total number of passengers and employees killed in train accidents was 421, and the number of injured 4,920, 53 less in the number killed and 20 less in the number injured, as compared with the record of the preceding three months. The total number of collisions and derailments in the quarter was 3,991 (2,078 collisions and 1,913 derailments), of which 323 collisions and 229 derailments affected passenger trains. The damage to cars, engines, and roadway by these accidents amounted to $3,536,110. WHAT WE PAY FOR CELEBRATING THE NATIONAL BIRTHDAY. According to the statistics gathered by the Journal of the Medical Association in 1903 the deaths resulting from explosives were 466, of these 406 were from tetanus. The injuries which resulted in recoveries are not known, but were undoubtedly very many more. Publicity has been given to this matter. The great mortality from tetanus was induced by the use of the blank cartridge. The warnings given by the public health authorities, together with the thorough antiseptic treatment adopted by the profession in caring for these cases, have reduced materially the mortality. The number of cases of tetanus in 1907 was only 73, but the deaths caused by the use of other than the blank cartridge have increased from 60 to 102. It would seem that the medical profession and health authorities have done what they could to prevent this annual slaughter. The great mass of the people, however, have not awakened to a sufficient realization of this needless massacre of our youth for them to insist upon the enforcement of the laws on our statute books intended to prevent this annual slaughter of the innocents. How long shall this continue? 614,0979 Bulletin No. 2, Volume VIII. Issued Quarterly by Vermont State Board of Health, December 1, 1907. Entered October 21, 1901, as second-class matter, Post Office at Brattleboro, Vt., CONTENTS: The Value and Interpretation of Sanitary Water Analyses, by H. B. Stone, M. D., Director of Laboratory of Hygiene, Vermont State Board of Health. Page 3. The Local Registrar of Vital Statistics, by Cressey L. Wilbur, M. D., Chief Statis- tician of Vital Statistics, Washington, D. C. Page 10. Duties of Physicians and Town Clerks in Making Returns of Vital Statistics, by H. B. Whittier, City Clerk, Rutland. Page 19. Purification of Water, by George W. Fuller, C. E., New York City. Page 33. The State Laboratory of Hygiene and Its Work, by H. B. Stone, M. D., Director and Pathologist of the Laboratory of Hygiene, Vermont State Board of Health. Duties of Health Officers, by Henry D. Holton, M. D., Secretary of the Board. THE VALUE AND INTERPRETATION OF SANITARY WATER ANALYSES. By B. H. STONE, M. D., DIRECTOR OF LABORATORY OF HYGIEene, Vermont STATE BOARD OF HEALTH. The day has passed when it was necessary to apologize for presenting a paper on any phase of sanitation before a body of general practitioners. Medicine is passing through a transitional period and the function of the physician is fast changing from that of healer of a sick public to the much higher one of preserver of the public health. That preventive medicine is the scientific medicine of the future, no one who has watched the developments of the past twenty years can doubt. That this is appreciated by the great public is amply proven by the readiness with which legislative bodies, composed largely of laymen, pass any measures to strengthen and make more effective the work of the state sanitary system. It is being more and more generally recognized that a state can spend its money no more wisely than in fostering any measures which tend to preserve the lives and health of its citizens. That progressive medical men in all lines are fully cognizant of the changed conditions and the added responsibilities which these new conditions bring is amply proven by a study of the medical literature of the day. The future of preventive medicine can be predicted in no more eloquent language than that of the brilliant surgeon, master of a branch of medicine essentially curative, Nicholas Senn, who commenced a recent address with the following words: "The final triumph of scientific medicine will be the victories of preventive medicine. What has been accomplished so far in the protection of mankind against disease, is but a mere beginning, a skirmish preceding a long and continuous campaign, a succession of fierce battles, with the causes of infection and contageous diseases, which will ultimately crown with victory the unremitting and unselfish toil of the most beneficent of all professions. . . . "The clientelle of the physicians is growing smaller and smaller, but their glory as humanitarians and scientists is rising and will reach the zenith after coming generations of more erudite physicians have conquered and laid at their feet the two worst enemies of mankind-tuberculosis and cancer." Considering the fact that this branch of medical science is a development of the last two decades, and that the terms, state medicine and sanitary science, were unknown twenty years ago, the accomplishments are remarkable. Every state in the union and every civilized country is now provided with a well-organized department of sanitation whose function is to guard the health of the state and secure its citizens as far as possible from the ravages of preventable disease. |