The water supply should also be carefully guarded from all possible sources of fæcal contamination. Drinking-water, unless above suspicion, should be boiled or strained. So far as possible, facilities for removing all earth and mud from the hands and dishes before food is partaken of should also be provided and their use encouraged.
Badly contaminated ground had better be abandoned. If this should be found impracticable, the soil should be turned over with the plough, or roasted with grass fires, or treated in such a manner that any ova or embryos it may contain are destroyed or buried. The systematic periodical inspection of plantation coolies is to be recommended. At these inspections all subjects of anæmia or dyspepsia should be put aside for more careful examination; if the ova of ankylostomes are found in their fæces a judicious dosing with some of the drugs above mentioned may avert serious disease in the individual, and also prevent him from becoming a source of danger to his companions.
In view of the great danger to health that exists in certain countries from this and similar parasites, the sanitary authorities in such places ought to circulate among the people, by means of printed leaflets or posters, a few simple directions for the prevention of ankylostomiasis and kindred diseases.
Recently attempts have been made in Porto Rico and elsewhere to reduce or exterminate the prevailing ankylostomiasis. Special officers have been detailed for the purpose, whose duty it is to submit the entire population to systematic drugging with β-naphthol. The result in the improvement of the general health and increase in the aggregate labour capacity has been most encouraging. This is an example of sanitary energy which we might follow with advantage in our own tropical possessions.*[1]
- ↑ * An anti-hookworm— as the ankylostome is called in America —campaign is now being waged in the United States and elsewhere, financed by Mr. Rockefeller. State and county dispensaries for free examination and treatment of applicants have been established. The total number treated in 11 States in 1912 was 238,755; the cost works out at a little over a dollar per head.
