RT Journal
T1 THe surface privy as a factor in spreading hookworm disease and typhoid fever
JF Journal of the American Medical Association
JO Journal of the American Medical Association
YR 1909
FD October 30
VO LIII
IS 18
SP 1492
OP 1492
DO 10.1001/jama.1909.02550180050008
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.1909.02550180050008
AB Charles W. Stiles in a recent article1 calls attention to the faulty disposal of excrement as the chief factor in producing the soil pollution which makes hookworm infection possible. Of 366 farm houses scattered over four southern states, it was found by actual count that only 115 houses, or 31.4 per cent., were provided with privies, while 251 houses, or 68.5 per cent., had no privy. Even when the privy is present it frequently affords little protection against soil pollution, because not properly built or not properly cleaned. The improper construction of the privy favors the spread not only of hookworm disease but of typhoid as well. While the cure of hookworm disease is of vast economic importance for the South, the reform of the insanitary conditions and habits that make this disease possible is of far greater importance, since it means a great lessening of typhoid and other