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Show Duty of a Good Neighbor Every family which has a member ill with typhoid fever, scarlet fever, or other contagious disease, is entitled to the sympathy and intelligent help of t'.e community. At the same time, the stricken family should realize fully that simple good citizenship calls upon its members to do everything in their power pow-er to prevent the spread of the contagion con-tagion to neighbors. In the country especially, where there are seldom health officers to impose' rigid quarantines, quaran-tines, the duty of keeping the sick separated from the -well falls with peculiar weight on the afflicted family. Ordinary neighborliness demands that such a family keep its members away ; from others and prevent outsiders from coming in contact with the infection. On a farm producing and selling milk, a contagious disease such as typhoid or scarlet feyer demands special precautions. precau-tions. A very few germs of these diseases dis-eases allowed to get into the milk may multiply rapidly and be a source of disease dis-ease in many families on the milk route served by the farmer. In the case of typhoid, the disease may come from germs in the well water, and this water if used unboiled for cleansing milk bottles or cans may very well st.irt a typhoid epidemic in a 1 neighboring town. Inspectors have frequently traced outbreaks of scarlet fever and typhoid along a milk route I and back to a sick person on the producer's pro-ducer's farm. It is the duty of every milk -farmer to see that no one who is suffering from fever of any kind ever enters the dairy. Moreover, no one engaged in nur-in .r ! the sick should ever be allowed to po near milk. Those who handle the milk n such farms, even though they never j h ive been near the person who i.- siek, should take special precautions. B -fore entering the milk room they should put on a clean cap and a clean duster, which are never allowed to go into the house. In cases of typhoid or suspect ed typhoid t. II water used in cleaning milk vessels should first be boiled. Finally, even with all these precautions, wherever typhoid or scarlet feyer is ! even suspected in a family, the milk ' should thoroughly pasteurized before 1 being sold. The milk producer who takes these precautions establishes his good citizenship. citizen-ship. The only one who handles milk carelessly with sickness in his family, is, though he may not realize it, a possible pos-sible enemy to his customers. Such precautions are doubly necessary where the owner of the farm is the sufferer, suf-ferer, because the milk is apt to , be handled carelessly for lack of his super-vis super-vis ion. Inspectors recently following up a case of bad milk found the owner of the farm sick with a bad case of typhoid fever. He gave his illness as a r.ason for his not being prosecuted, be- cause the low quality of the milk was I due directly to its handling by inexperienced inexperi-enced persons. Investigation proved t lat the farmer's illness was one of a! succession of cases of typhoid that had occured on this farm. The probability, therefore, was that the milk being sent out before the farmer was siek was dangerously contaminated, while, of course, the risk after illness had withdrawn with-drawn his attention was vastly increased. increas-ed. ;.' '' I In many -cases where an outbreak of typhoid has been traced back to a dairy the owner was not deliberately careless. Typhoid fever is not always readily : recognized as such, and not uncommonly passes simply as a fever or bowel com-i com-i plaint. For this reason every case of ! fever on a dairy farm should be regard-' regard-' eJ with suspicion and lead to very careful care-ful handling of the milk. Members of househol Is in which there are contagious or suspicious-illness also have an important part to play in keep- , 1 , 1 1 .III . I - . I.. I , j iCupvritfu'., i,. w 2. L- ing the milk supply clean. Thevsh:.. never return emptv milk bottl. s w: out first boiling thm, and any farr which takes a public milk b ttle int. romn where there is a contagious & e tse is really a party to a serious off,;-air off,;-air iinst public health. A milk d? I: who l;arns of a case of sickness r. ' family should keep the bot;les inz V at house separated from th oth : and make certain that thev are vt carefully sterilized before they are K;iin used for miik. Even where there is no sickness or, -farm, the dairy farmer should u-e e.f'. effort to produce a hiyh piaile, ci-milk ci-milk from healthy co vs. Sc-.-riiiz i...-' of bottles and other milk vedsels is a senlial. |