Typhoid and Scarlet Fever Shadow Seattle's Sewers
Health officer blames bad plumbing and cesspools as 21 typhoid cases, four fatal, are reported; a doctor prepares to test Lake Union and Lake Washington water.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Health Officer Palmer reported three new cases of typhoid fever and two of scarlet fever yesterday, bringing the total since January 1 to 21 cases of typhoid, four of them fatal, and eight cases of scarlet fever with no deaths. Neither disease was considered epidemic, though the totals exceeded the same period last year. Dr. Palmer traced the illnesses chiefly to imperfect sewer connections, dwellings with no sewer connection at all, and poorly maintained cesspools. He also warned of defective plumbing, diseased milk, and impure water, and urged cleanliness around sinks and outhouses. Dr. A. R. Kibbe, who was studying bacteria with other physicians, planned to begin analyzing water from Lake Union and Lake Washington to determine its purity. He thought the state legislature should fund a laboratory for such work.
“principally to the lack of perfect sewerage connection with dwellings and to buildings which had no sewer connection at all, but maintained cesspools”
Typhoid was a waterborne killer in 1893, and Seattle's health officer pointed straight at sewers and cesspools. The city's lakes were both drinking-water sources and receiving waters for shoreline homes—an early version of the environmental and public-health battles that continue around Puget Sound. The call for a state bacteriology lab foreshadows today's water-quality monitoring.
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