Ward 21, the other section selected, is in area one of the largest in the city, lying to the east in what is known as the Homewood District. The population of this ward is about 26,000, living mostly in good homes, with occasional poorer dwellings along the railroad and in some of the "runs." In the main, they represent a high wage or small salaried class. From this section, the other half of the cases studied, about forty-eight per cent was taken.
The period covered by the investigation was one year, beginning July 1, 1906, and ending June 30, 1907. The field work was done by Miss Anna B. Heldman, visiting nurse of the Columbian School Settlement, whose personal acquaintance with many of the families of the Hill District, and whose six or eight years' experience in caring for typhoid patients in this same neighborhood, enabled her to secure in detail many facts that might have escaped a person less familiar with the district or the families concerned.
An analysis of the cases thus studied, shows that there were either reported to the Pittsburgh Bureau of Health, or known to the investigator, but not reported, 433 cases of typhoid fever in wards 8 and 11, 94 in wards 25, 26, and 27, and 502 in ward 21—a total of 1,029 in these six wards within the one year studied. These cases occurred in 844 families. Miss Heldman, five months after the close of this year period, was able to locate but 338 of these families, the remainder having either moved out of the state, or been lost track of by people living in the neighborhood.
There were 2,045 individuals in these 338 families, or an average of 6.4 persons per family. Of this number, 448 individuals, or 22 per cent had typhoid fever within the year. Out of these 448 cases, there were 26 deaths and 422 recoveries, an exceptionally low percentage of deaths to cases.
Line representing 8,149 people who have died from typhoid fever in Pittsburgh since report of Filtration Commission in 1899 advising necessity of pure water. Standing in marching order, single file, four feet apart, they would make a procession six miles long.
Of the 448 patients, 187 were wage earners, contributing all or part of their earnings to the family income. As a result of their illness, these 187 wage earners lost 1,901 weeks' work, or 36.6 years. This averaged over ten weeks per patient, and represented an actual loss in wages of $23,573.15. In addition, other wage earners lost 322 weeks' work while caring for patients, thereby losing $3,326.50 in wages, and bringing the total of wages lost to $26,899.65.