I saw the case to-day with the county physician, and he wants advice from the State Board. We are not sure what the trouble really is, but the man has been isolated for safety for the present, and is under the care of Dr. physician. Will you kindly write him concerning case, as I am just starting East, and will not be here when your letter arrives. Please excuse haste, have written hurriedly. County [A San Joaquin Valley City.] Cal., July 25, 1911. Wm. F. Snow, M.D., Sacramento, Cal. DEAR SIR: We wish to call your attention to the septic tanks, which unfortunately happen to be within a few hundred yards of our home, and which is causing us a great deal of annoyance. The odor at times is unbearable, and we are compelled to close our windows, which is very unpleasant these warm nights. Not only that, but since the tanks have been there we have been troubled with mosquitoes so bad that it is impossible to stay out of doors after sundown. Hoping you will investigate the matter and see if anything can be done in regard to it, we remain, Yours truly, [A Central California City.] I was called to a little town about ten or eleven miles from here, to inspect the city and surrounding country in regard to the sanitary conditions. I find although an incorporated town, has no organized Board of Health or Health Officer. It is absolutely the most unsanitary, foul smelling, dirty place I ever saw in the United States. There is from sixteen to twenty cesspools or so-called sanitary vaults, or septic tanks, they are all flowing over. As the state law forbids pumping them, I have served notices on quite a number of them not to pump them out, and left notices for the Mayor of the town to serve on those that I did not see. I write you for advice and instructions how to handle this little burg. They voted down the sewer bonds, but I can see no remedy to clean the place up without sewerage. Some houses have their whole back yard dug up with cesspools from ten to fourteen feet deep, and all overflowing. I would like for you to advise me what to do in this matter. If you think it is best to send a man or come yourself to investigate this case, come to or have the party whoever does come, if you send anybody, stop at and we will motor down. The trouble all seems to hinge on two factions in the town, but I'm quite positive that the State Board will have to take hold of this matter. If not, the town is so dirty and filthy that we'll have some serious epidemics before long, on account of the unsanitary condition of the place. Will you kindly reply to this as early as you can, I am, -, County Health Officer. [Northern California.] At is located the old sawmill, built many years before I entered the service of the Fish and Game Commission. The sawdust was run out by a V flume, and dumped along the banks, and back on a flat marsh, bordering Creek. A board wall or fence was built along the bank of the stream to hold the sawdust back from the stream. The sawdust was piled up to a depth of thirty feet or more. for a distance of a thousand or fifteen hundred feet along the stream, and back for six hundred feet, the water passing through beneath and out in small streams into the creek. Added to the sawdust there was placed over the V flume toilets for the use of the men at the box factory. A fire destroyed the fence, allowing the sawdust to fall down into the stream. The surface of this immense heap of sawdust becomes dry as soon as the snow is melted or soon after a rain. Every spring the wind blows a gale from the south, which drives the dry particles of sawdust into the old channel of the stream, thus keeping a supply which passes down, soaking with the water, and slowly filling up the pools, to a distance uncalculable, entering Shasta River and the Klamath, and so on. The water that carries the sawdust from the mill keeps it soaked from a few inches below the surface to the ground beneath, precluding the burning of the sawdust except on the surface. The water takes with it the turpentine and sap from the sawdust, which added to the other sources, makes a black, foaming stream that has a fearful stench unfit for cattle or humans to drink. In order to stop as much as possible the sawdust from passing down the stream the company was required by the Fish Commission to dig a ditch, diverting the stream from its old channel out along the hillside for a distance of six hundred feet, thereby putting the water into the old channel below the dump. but often the cattle break the banks and the water gets back into the stream, but none is getting away now from that source, as the ditch has been repaired and cattle turned out. - a part of the town of This creek flows down through where it gathers the sewer deposit of most of the town, the greater portion of which is saloons. Then come the great sawdust dumps from the immense plant at covering a hundred acres, or nearly so, many feet deep. Here the toilets are over the flumes and the mass is dumped out on the land above the creek, the water finding ་ its way into same along the ground beneath. When I last reported this dump, a hole through the brush and under the wall was allowing the water to wash sawdust down, but my inspection of yesterday found the place closed and no sawdust escaping, but the water (about thirty miners' inches being used) is black slime, full of turpentine, sap, etc. As stated in former reports. the water from these sources flowing down the creek into Shasta River is polluted and is polluting Shasta River, noticeable for a distance of fifteen miles. The only way to obviate this is for those mills to burn the sawdust and the sewerage to be dumped into tanks and sterilized. The sawdust is less in extent than in the past, but the slime is worse. I am taking this report to our district attorney, and will get Yours respectfully, his answer. [A Lower San Joaquin City.] DEAR SIR: Under separate cover, I am sending you a set of plans for the proposed settling tanks for the city of Cal. You will notice that they are designed along circular lines, thereby using maximum economy in construction and maximum efficiency in diffusing the sewage in the tanks. You will also notice that provision has been made for cleaning out, not only the sludge, but also the scum. It is proposed to use the effluent for irrigation when desired, and when not so used, to run the sewage effluent through open jointed tile drains, laid under the surface of the ground, until it has seeped away. The tanks will be located about three miles southwest of the city, on a 40-acre sewer farm. The plans for the entire works have not been completed as yet, but I thought I would send these in with the request that you look them over when convenient; I would like to have the plans in such shape that they will meet with your approval, and that you will then approve them officially, if such procedure is permissible. Very truly yours, [A Sacramento Valley City.] Will you kindly inform me as to the requirements with regard to slaughterhouses? The local County Health Officer of this place orders me to not salt hides in the slaughterhouse; to not feed offals to hogs at all unless cooked, as they are inductive to typhoid. I am willing to do all that is required, and will conform to any reasonable request beyond actual requirements. And as I have never seen any out-of-town slaughterhouses doing these things, I am inclined to think that I am being imposed upon. To cook the offals from my killing-which amounts to only an average of one beef per day, would require me to hire an extra man at an expense of about $60 per month, and would knock the profit entirely off the business. I have a large hog yard, about one and one half acres, and have my men scatter these offals so that the hogs can and do clean them up entirely before they decompose. As to salting hides at the slaughterhouse-they are thoroughly salted and cured, but, as you surely know, hides always smell, and smell strongly. The fresh meat comes in contact with nothing but the wagon it is hauled in, and is not left there at all, but taken immediately to the market. Please instruct me fully, and also, has the local officer any authority beyond your rules? Yours very truly, [A San Francisco Case.] Acknowledging the citation issued by your honorable Board, directed against us April 15, 1911, we are enclosing affidavit of our manager in regard to same. On the occasion of the inspector's first visit to us we assured him of our willingness to strictly observe the laws of the Pure Food Commission, and advised him if he saw anything on our shelves that did not comply with said laws, we would gladly remove the same. We must acknowledge the violation in this case, and ask that you deal with us as leniently as the circumstances will permit. Assuring you of our hearty cooperation in the upholding of all pure food laws, we beg to remain, Yours very truly, [A Los Angeles Case.] I do hereby depose and make affidavit that the labels found on toothache drops of my manufacture were put on by error by a new clerk in my employ, and none of same were sold, having been bottled a couple of days previous to your inspector's call. Proper labels were in stock and in use at the time, and had been for several years back, however, some of the "old firm" labels remained undestroyed and my clerk happened on these. I was not present when your inspector was doing his duty, but on my return (about an hour later), and on learning of the mislabeled drops, immediately wrote the honorable State Board of Health at Sacramento of the error and enclosed the properly worded labels which should have been used. The half dozen bottles of toothache drops were relabeled and all old labels destroyed. Very truly, [From a San Joaquin Valley City.] Secretary of Stae Bord of helth DEAR SIR find in closed Bill of goods that wer bought insept 15 1905 of Syrup Pickle cO. which the chiley sause that the puer food in spector found that did not conferm with puer food law now this goods were maid before the puer food law past and we posable had a few botles that had neve bin sold and posible hav not sold eny for years and i hav in structed my manager to distroy all that old goods he has in store as we dont want to vilate the lawe in eny form and i hop yoy will ex plain this to yor bord and ask them to dismiss the case as we wer ignernt of the contence of the goods and and cant sea how the other people could be blamd as it wer put up be fore the food law wer past. thanking you for yor trouble and what ever expence you may be to iwill gladly pauy yours vary truly [The above is an accurate copy, minus the address and signature.] [Sacramento Valley Town.] Secretary of State Board of Health. The water works of this town are municipally owned, and the Board of Trustees is desirous of having the water furnished by these works analyzed in order to determine its fitness for general use. It has been suggested to me that the State Board of Health would furnish an analysis or would investigate and advise how and where one can be obtained. Can you aid me in this matter? Respectfully, [From a Bay City.] You would greatly oblige me if you could let me have, for an indefinite period of a few months, one of the demonstration boxes I have seen, to be used as illustration of talks on hygiene. We expect to have two or three different courses on this and allied subjects at our Y. W. C. A., and perhaps there will be opportunity also for me to use it in some schools, through mothers' clubs, etc. I would also be very glad, if possible, to be on your mailing list for the bulletins of the Board of Health. At the present time, in a few cases, the undertakers are compelled to go to the CITY HEALTH OFFICE, also, to visit my office, which is three blocks farther north, while nearly all the undertakers' establishments are a mile or more farther south. Nearly all of the undertakers have signed a petition requesting me to appoint a member of one of the largest undertaking firms as a subregistrar. This, no doubt, would be a convenience to them; on the other hand, one firm objects very strenuously to such action on my part. I have taken the matter up with the City Health Officer, and he says that the undertakers do a great many things that they ought not to do, and he regrets he can not have some of them arrested. I consider the gentleman they have requested me to appoint a reliable man; but in the end it is necessary for you to approve all my work and my appointments. Do you think it advisable to appoint an undertaker to issue burial permits? early reply will be appreciated. Yours very truly, County Recorder. An DEAR SIR: Please accept my thanks for your very kind letter of the 3d inst. in response to my letter inquiring what, if anything, had been done as to the matter of calling attention of medical practitioners to act approved April 21, 1911, for the reporting of occupational diseases. I think every one is satisfied that the changes made in the bill for the purpose of having medical practitioners report to the State Board of Health and the latter transmit such data to the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics will prove beneficial. Yours, etc., MY DEAR DR. SNOW: If you have not taken up that matter of the International Congress on Hygiene and Demography with Governor Johnson, please do so. There is an active foreign demand for our preliminary announcement, and we must get it out, in French and German, as well as in English, without delay. I should hate very much to let it go with the statement that only twenty out of forty-six states have so far sent in official acceptances of the President's invitation. It would be a bad parallel to the other statement that twenty-three foreign countries (all there are that count) have sent their official acceptances to the Department of State. Yours very truly, JOHN S. FULTON, Secretary-General. I am now engaged in compiling the California Blue Book, issue of 1911, as provided by the last session of the legislature, and in this connection would thank you kindly if you will, in your official capacity, favor me with an article of about two thousand words as an introductory bearing on your branch of the State government. I would appreciate it very much if you would let me have this article at an early date. Thanking you in anticipation of your kind consideration, I am Very truly yours, FRANK C. JORDAN, Secretary of State. [San Francisco Consulate.] This is to request of you the favor to inform me at your convenience, whether the following names appear in your death-list: John Marcopulos or Marcos, a Greek, supposed to have died eight months ago. Michael Carantsas or Colontaris or Vamos, a Greek, about seventy years old, supposed to have died six months ago. Thanking you in advance for any information that you may desire to furnish me with, regarding the death of these men, I am, Respectfully yours, RICHARD DE FONTANA, Consul of Greece. DEPARTMENT REPORTS. REPORT OF BUREAU OF VITAL STATISTICS FOR JUNE. GEORGE D. LESLIE, Statistician. State Totals and Annual Rates.-The following table shows for California as a whole the birth, death, and marriage totals for the current and preceding months in comparison with those for the corresponding months of last year, as well as the annual rates per 1,000 population represented by the totals for the current and preceding months. The rates are based on an estimated midyear population of 2,488,256 for California in 1911, the estimate having been made by the Census Bureau method with slight modifications. Birth, Death and Marriage Totals, with Annual Rates per 1,000 Population for Current and Preceding Months, for California: June. The death total for June, 1911, is somewhat less than that for June, 1910, but the birth and marriage totals for June, as for the preceding five months of 1911, are greater than the corresponding totals for the same months last year. In fact, the June marriage total for 1911 is by far the highest monthly total reported under the registration law of 1905, the several June totals being as follows: 1911, 2,976; 1910, 2,636; 1909, 2,511; 1908, 2,251; 1907, 2,366, and 1906, 2,342. County Totals.-The following table shows the monthly birth, death, and marriage totals for the principal counties of the State, the list being limited to counties having a population of at least 25,000 according to the Federal Census of 1910. Totals are also shown for San Francisco |