The Dispatch News

HEALTH RULES
ARE DISREGARDED

Disregard of and indifference to the regulations of the state board of health concerning compulsory vaccination and the maintenance of open surface toilets are prevalent more or less generally throughout the rural communities of the state, says Dr. A. H. Hayden, state epidemiologist, who has just returned from a visit to several South Carolina towns in response to various complaints of irregularities in outlying communities.

A visit to a cotton mill village in the vicinity of Rock Hill Wednesday revealed a small epidemic of smallpox among the inhabitants, while practically no precautionary measures had been taken. Dr. Hayden says. In one family alone, according to the epidemiologist, eight cases of smallpox were found, each of which had been diagnosed by three physicians from two different cities as chickenpox. None of the family had been vaccinated nor quarantined, while a subsequent inspection of the community revealed innumerable other cases of the disease, where even contacts had not been administered preventative measures, Dr. Hayden states. The matter was taken up with the mill authorities, and a Rock Hill physician, together with the state official, vaccinated all contacts and various residents of the village.

A similar visit paid to Lexington Thursday revealed a like condition in rural districts near the city in that community, Dr. Hayden states, and, in this place, it was discovered that the rural school authorities had absolutely disregarded the compulsory vaccination law, and that none of the pupils in the school had been vaccinated as a requisite to admittance.

Friday Dr. Hayden went to Swansea on complaint of the maintenance of innumerable open surface toilets, unkept, extremely filthy and located, in five or six cases, within 40 to 160 feet of private residences, according to the official. The mayor of the city was consulted. Dr. Hayden says, and informed of the health department's definition of a "nuisance."

This definition approved and adopted by the executive committee of the state board of health October 26, 1926, is quoted by Dr. Hayden as follows:

"Whatever is dangerous to human health, whatever renders the ground, air or food a hazard or injury to human health, and the following acts, conditions and things, are, each and all of them, hereby declared to constitute a nuisance.

(a) The maintenance of any barn, stable, chicken yard, hog pen, or manure pile in such manner that the same is a breeding place for flies or liable to become so.

(b) The deposit of garbage in any but fly-proof and watertight receptacles where residences are less than 500 feet apart.

(c) The accumulation of water in which mosquito larvae may breed.

(d) Growth of weeds where mosquitoes may harbor or rubbish may be concealed, where residences are less than 500 feet apart.

(f) The keeping of any building or any part of a building, which, on account of its dilapidated condition or its occupancy by any person afflicted with communicable disease, or by filthy tenants, may endanger the life or health of residents therein or in the vicinity thereof.

(g) The discharge of sewage, garbage or any other organic filth into or upon any place in such manner that transmission of infective material to human beings may result therefrom."-The Record.