While this work was proceeding the organizations devoting their energies to control of infectious disease, inspection, and administration had been far from idle. The State Board of Health had three sanitary engineers and two physicians, trained in public health work, in the city before the waters receded. The city Board of Health was one of the first in the field, and the medical corps of the Ohio National Guard promptly took up the work. Co-operating with one another, under the direction of Major L. T. Rhoades of the United States medical corps, who was appointed chief sanitary officer, and with the assistance of local doctors and nurses and those furnished by the Red Cross, these organizations soon established control of the entire city in a comprehensive and effective manner.
The Ohio State Board of Health engineers were assigned to assist in the water works, sewerage, and general cleaning up. Then, in co-operation with the city board and Major Rhoades, the city was divided into sixteen sanitary districts, with a physician in charge of each. These physicians inspected their districts, reported to headquarters, conditions requiring particular attention, instructed people in sanitation and followed up all reported cases of illness to guard against contagion.
The city bacteriologist reestablished his laboratory, which had been inundated, and took up diagnostic and analytical work. The state plumbing inspector and the state inspector of workshops and factories established offices, and joined with the city inspectors in pushing inspection work rapidly. Men were sent out to trace all contagious cases that were on the books at the time of the floods, and the reporting of infectious diseases and deaths were resumed as rapidly as possible.
Four contagious disease wards were established in addition to the tuberculosis and small-pox hospitals, two in the St. Elizabeth and Miami Valley Hospitals in the city and one each in North Dayton and Riverdale. As fast as infectious cases were reported or discovered, they were removed to one of these wards, and the houses placarded and disinfected.
A food inspection office was also opened, and all food arriving on relief cars was inspected before distribution to relief stations, that which had already been distributed being inspected at the stations.
The medical corps of the Ohio National Guard established a base field hospital in the new courthouse, and a supply depot in the probate court room of the old courthouse. In addition, seven relief hospitals were established in Dayton View, Miami City, Edgemont, South Park, the Davis Sewing Machine Company’s plant, North Dayton, and Riverdale, with a surgeon of the medical corps of the National Guard and a corps of civilian physicians and Red Cross nurses in charge of each. These stations had maternity, general, and infectious wards. Hospital and proved infectious cases were promptly forwarded to St. Elizabeth’s or the Miami Valley Hospital. The base hospital received all cases among the companies of the National Guard on duty; those which would obviously not recover in time for useful service were returned to their homes. The supply depot of the field hospital not only furnished the base hospital and the seven field stations, but supplies were also furnished to the sixteen stations of the sanitary committee, at the request of Major Rhoades.
An efficiently manned hospital doing all classes of work was established by the National Cash Register Company and the American Red Cross in the administration building at the National Cash Register Company’s plant, and other medical relief stations were maintained in the city by the Red Cross.
Up to the close of the first week following the flood no unusual prevalence of infectious disease had developed. Some cases of diphtheria, pneumonia, and measles were reported, but the number was not substantially larger than that previous to the flood. When the conditions that prevailed during the first three days after the disaster are considered, with the strain on the entire population during the first days of reconstruction, it seems impossible that Dayton will escape without a considerable number of cases of intestinal and exposure diseases, such as typhoid and pneumonia. But the complete, efficient, and harmonious system of public health organization that has been established gives promise that no epidemic will follow and that the first cases, due to infection before control was established, will be the last.
THE FRIEDMANN CURE
ALICE HAMILTON, M.D.