| Show dro DR to B BEATTY WES HISTORY OF PRESENT EPIDEMIC while a total ot of cases ot of paratyphoid has been reported in brigham city to dote date ot of which eighty have been noted since july 31 21 when the state board ot of health made its first investigation dr T B beatty state health commissioner said yesterday that the presumption Is that those cases which have occurred since july 31 were derived from water consumed before that date with application of proper measures to prevent the spread of the infection by contact the occurrence ot of new cases should cease within a week or ten days the epidemic has been traced by A S bedell sanitary saul tarr engineer tor for the state board ot of health to the water used in brigham city this water Is taken from a spring tree free from infection but which gathered impurities and the germs of the disease before it reached the city this condition is now being taken care ot of by chlorination and samples of water taken by mr Bedell last saturday showed that the chlorination process is working satisfactorily and that the water wafer in the city mains Is free from the infection with this chlorination process in operation said dr beatty so tar far as the water is concerned the disease Is controlled cases may appear tor for ten days yet from incubation of disease germs imbibed with the water before the chlorination process was started and while proper precautions lre ire being advised by the local physicians to prevent spread ot of the malady from cases which have broken out or may do so I 1 have urged that the city council of brigham city take measures to provide tree free inoculation against the paratyphoid to all who may desire it this advice will I 1 am told b be e presented drese to the city council at its meeting beet alt 9 tonight the history of the present epidemic in brigham city has proved ot of unusual interest paratyphoid B as aa the particular type of the disease Is known is a disease similar in many respects to typhoid fever it has some ot of the same symptoms and it Is transmitted like typhoid through the discharges from the body ot of the patient it Is accompanied by a high fever and Is described as a serious and violent sickness though it is not commonly fatal the disease began to appear at brigham city between july 13 and july 17 it Is not a common epidemic disease and it was some time before it if was recognized as epidemic and even then its diagnosis proved puzzling it had been present two weeks before it was wag reported to the state board of health when mr bedell went to investigate july 31 there were already sixty five cases ot of the malady and new ones were being reported dally considerable work had already been done by brigham city physicians in endeavoring to ascertain the cause ot of the epidemic it was waa pretty certain continued Continue don on page 2 column 4 WATER CAUSE OF EPIDEMIC continued from page one that it could not come from the milk supply it did not favor any particular portion ot of the city nor at that time was it common tor for more than one case to io occur in a family mr bedell although not a physician noted the similarity of the symptoms as described to those given in textbooks for paratyphoid para typhoid B and requested that the local physicians have tests made tor for that disease this was lone done and the bacteriological laboratories all reported definitely definitely the presence ot of the paratyphoid id germ mr air bedell also A as s a i result of the investigations already made by the physicians sic ians was driven to the theory that the disease was transmitted through the city water since ethe the water was about the only agent of which the use was common to all the cases ot of the disease while the water of 0 the hailing spring from which the supply is obtained has uniformly rested as pure repeated tests have shown that the water has been polluted between the spring and the reservoir r eser voir which feeds the city mains mr ball points out in his written rep report ortto to the state board of health the state board of health says the report has recommended tor for at least one year that cast iron pipe be used in conveying the water thru the town of mantua to the brigham reservoir instead 0 of the vitrified fied pipe used at present there was plenty of indication that the cement joints in the twelve inch vl trifled fied pipe were in at least some instances imperfect the water in this pipe is not under pressure and therefore seepage water from roni the town and the irrigation sup ply ly of the fields around mantua might readily bo be mixed in the brigham sup ply ily pending such installation it recommended was that the city water be chlorinated as a matter of health insurance inquiry by the engineer resulted in the discovery that a suspected case of typhoid had occurred near mantua about june 23 this was at a house located near the brigham city pipe line the family used a septic tanks tank with an imperfectly installed outlet emptying over some marshy soil near the pipe line tor for disposal of its sewage discharges from the patient were first dis infected and then flushed into the septic tank thereby impairing or nullifying the ae action tion of the tank this process was going on late in june and early in july A heavy rainstorm near mantua about july 6 saturated the whole territory the cases began to appear in brigham from a week to ten days thereafter and while the case at mantua at that time was suspected of being typhoid the be lica now is that it was paratyphoid para typhoid and that from it the present epidemic in brigham city resulted radical changes were at once ordered in the disposition of the sewage from the house at mantua where the disease had occurred this was wag reu rendered all the more necessary since the grandmother of the first patient had been stricken with the epidemic at brigham city and had gone to the mantua home on july 29 in addition mr air bedell reported his findings to the city council and the city board of health of brigham A notice was prepared informing the people of suspected ions in the water supply and instructing them to boll boil the water until further notice this was mailed out the same evening pending the purchase of a chlorination plant tor for brigham arrangements were made for borrowing one from salt lalie lake and not only was this furnished by superintendent H K burton of salt lake as an example of the comity between municipalities but a foreman was sent to brigham to see that it was properly installed even before the outbreak of the eaf epidemic brigham city had purchased cast iron pipe but this had not been immediately installed it Is now thought that it will be installed a at once in those localities most sur ep t able of infection and that other replacements of the vitrified fied pipe will be made later as may be found necessary in the meantime the chlorination chlorin atlon process Is in operation and tests appear to prove its efficacy brigham city therefore may expect a waning of 0 the epidemic from this time unless secondary cases should be allowed to appear tribune |
