Two Lessons in Sanitation

Two Lessons in Sanitation By Richard R. Lyman, Ph. D., Professor of Civil Engineering, University of Utah

The effectiveness with which community effort operates where organizations of the Latter-day Saints Church are found, is illustrated by the way in which communities in Utah and neighboring states have learned at least two lessons in sanitation. The writer was born in one "Mormon" village in southern Utah and he grew to manhood in another such village not far from Salt Lake City. His education, until he went east to college, was obtained in "Mormon" public and private schools. In the country villages of his childhood and youth, the writer lived under conditions that surround all primitive peoples. He never heard of disease germs. Everyone he knew drank water from the same open ditches which served the cattle and horses. The thought that open closets were a menace to the health of the people occurred to no one. In the fall of 1902 the writer, at Cornell University, began the study of sanitary engineering. As he listened to lectures explaining, for example, that typhoid fever comes only from germs that live and multiply in the bowels of a typhoid fever patient, and that these get into the human system only through the mouth and generally in impure drinking water, he pictured the unsanitary conditions in the rural communities from which he came and he longed for an opportunity to draw the attention of his people to these new truths. In the fall of 1904 when the campaign for new sanitary conditions began in the city of Pleasant Green, pure water was supplied to people in only a few of the many cities and towns of this inter-mountain country. The facts presented were quickly accepted; that is, that one cannot get typhoid fever without the actual typhoid fever germ any more than one can produce corn without corn for seed, or wheat without wheat for seed. The lesson learned during the Spanish -American War was effective, namely: that soldiers in unscreened tents suffered from serious typhoid fever epidemics while the officers in screened tents escaped. The observation of this condition led to the important discovery that it is the fly with its wings, legs and body laden with germs that is responsible for defiling food which, when eaten, produces typhoid and other germ

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822 IMPROVEMENT ERA

diseases. Wisely is the ordinary house-fly, by degrees, being named the "typhoid-fly." From this beginning, through the well-organized "Mormon" villages, the good news spread until today pure water is supplied under modern sanitary conditions to practically all our communities, even to our smallest towns and wards. These lines are written in Bluff, Utah, a place which is said to be farther from the railroad than is any other town in the United States. There are but 71 persons living here. Twenty-eight of — these 40 per cent of the population— in this busy planting season, were in attendance at a public meeting held May 24, Monday, at 2 o'clock. The purity of the water supplied under modern conditions, even in this little city, the state chemist says, is perfect. The sparkling fluid does not see the light of day "until it comes out on the breakfast table." Does this not speak eloquent praise for the progressiveness of the "Mormon" people? The same desirable conditions prevail generally in Idaho, Wyoming and Colorado where L. D. S. people live. One other example. The writer was supervisor of the Parents' Classes of the Ensign stake. Passing the sacrament cup, laden with germs from lip to lip, he observed was a source of great danger to parents and perhaps a greater danger to children. The alarm had hardly been sounded when Bishop T. A, Clawson of the eighteenth ward devised or discovered and adopted individual sacrament cups. This was in 1912, and the cups were first used on Sunday, Feb. 18, of that year. Swiftly the good word spread, and today even in far away San Juan, where these lines are written, and in every other quarter where Latter-day Saints dwell, the sanitary cup is in use.

Scouts

Be Prepared. Scout Motto. On my honor I will do my be8t: 1. To do my duty to God and my country and obey the Scout Law. 2. To help other people at all times. 3. To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.—Scout Oath. Do a good turn daily. Scout Slogan. Have you a Boy Scout group in your church or school? If not. why not?