Eliminating Flies, Making the Water Supply Safe, Typhoid Shots Bringing Down Typhoid Deaths in North Carolina, June 10, 1919

From the editorial page of The Monroe Journal, Tuesday, June 10, 1919

Typhoid Fever

Typhoid fever is gradually on the decline in North Carolina as is shown by the following figures published in the June Health Bulletin:

1914, 839 deaths in State from typhoid; rate 35.4

1915, 744 deaths in State from typhoid; rate 31.3

1916, 700 deaths in State from typhoid; rate 25.7

1917, 626 deaths in State from typhoid; rate 25.7

1918, 514 deaths in State from typhoid; rate 23.6

The bulletin further states that this reduction is not due to chance but to hard and specific work against this evil and towards educating the people, on the part of the State Board of Health officials.

North Carolinians have first been taught that this disease can be preventing by driving out man’s deadly enemy, the fly, and making safe the water supply. Contaminated water is one of the chief means of spreading typhoid. Even after these precautions are taken another necessity towards safeguarding lives is inoculation.

The county commissioners have made arrangements with the State Board of Health to begin the campaign against typhoid Aug. 15 with the expense to be borne by the county. One inoculation will stave off the disease for two years. Every man, woman and child in the county should take this treatment and help in eradicating typhoid fever from North Carolina.

‘