Chapter LXVI: Section 30: , Title 3, of the CONSTITUTION OF NORWAY (8)

"The plan of fumigation is as follows: Strips of paper are
placed across the windows, which ordinarily have no glass or
any netting in them, and then by the fumes either of sulphur
or pyrethrum every nook and cranny of the house is visited.
These gases are fatal or paralyzing to the mosquito. After
sufficient time has passed the house is opened, and then a
corps of health employees are set to work cleaning the house
and sweeping out the dead mosquitoes, which are found in great
numbers upon the floors. The mosquitoes are burned to avoid
further mischief. By these methods, for which Dr. Gorgas and
Governor Magoon are both to be credited with great praise,
yellow fever has been reduced to a point where during the last
month only three cases were reported, not one of these among
canal employees, and all originating many miles from the canal
line. The efforts to subdue the fever, instead of being
relaxed, are being continued. Square miles of woven-wire
netting with interstices so small as to prevent the entrance
of mosquitoes are spread about the piazzas of the houses of
all Americans and foreigners who come to live under the
auspices of the Canal Commission in the Isthmus. The windows
inside are also screened, and then mosquito-bars on the beds
are used as a third precaution. Whenever a case of yellow
fever is discovered, the patient is at once either removed to
the hospital and put under a woven-wire screen, or, if he
prefers to remain at home, the woven-wire screen is put over
him and an orderly placed in charge of him at his own
residence. In this way he is prevented from furnishing a
supply of the poison to the healthy mosquitoes, who, in turn,
by stinging, would bring it back to man. In other words, the
plan is to kill all the mosquitoes, well or ill, keep them as
much as possible from stinging man, and isolate every man with
yellow fever, not from his fellows, but from mosquitoes. …
Little by little, and facing discouragement after
discouragement, the two thousand employees of the sanitary
department are winning in this fight against disease, upon
which the whole success of the canal work depends. As Mr.
Stevens said to me, when I crossed the Isthmus with him this
month, ‘I take off my hat to the work which the sanitation
department has done in this Canal Zone.’"

A report to the London _Times_, in June, 1909, of
conditions on the Canal and in the Canal Zone, shows the
effectiveness with which this work of sanitation was done.
More arduous than the campaign against yellow fever, says the
writer, "was the campaign against malaria, a disease from
which 80 per cent. of the people were suffering to some
degree. This campaign consisted in warfare against mosquitoes
and in the administration of quinine, and the efforts in this
respect have also been highly successful. In 1906 the
proportion of canal _employés_ treated for malaria was no
less than 821 in the thousand. In 1908 it had fallen to 282 in
the thousand. The general effect of sanitary measures may
best be judged from the death-rate among the tens of thousands
of canal _employés_. In 1906 it was 41.73 to the
thousand, and in 1908 it was only 13.01 to the thousand,
making the canal one of the most healthy industrial
establishments in the world."

PUBLIC HEALTH: PELLAGRA:
Lombroso’s Discovery of its Source.
Its now recognized Seriousness.

In 1872 Cesare Lombroso, the noted criminologist, "incurred a
great deal of odium for a discovery which proved to be of much
scientific and economic importance. He noted the fact that a
large number of the inmates of asylums were suffering from
_pellagra_, a curious disease, which first affected the
skin and afterwards attacked the brain and nervous system.
Lombroso discovered that the disorder was to be traced to a
poison contained in diseased maize, which the Lombardian
landowners were in the habit of doling out to the poor
peasantry. At a time when toxins were unknown, Lombroso
succeeded in extracting the poison from the maize and
infecting animals with it—quite in the manner of modern
bacteriologists. His discovery was received with much
derision; but a friend of Lombroso, M. Alfred Maury, reported
the facts to Berthelot, the Parisian chemist, who analysed the
poison and established the fact that the maize contained an
injurious substance resembling strychnine but differing from
it in important particulars. The validity of Lombroso’s
discovery was thus triumphantly established. He was not
satisfied with this initial success, but for several years
fought on the platform and in the Press for an improvement in
the economic conditions of the peasantry whereby the ravages
of the disease might be combated." In late years his work of
agitation on the subject has been continued by many others.
The disease is of recognized seriousness in Italy, France, and
latterly in the United States. In November, 1909, the American
Government appointed an official commission to investigate it.

PUBLIC HEALTH: PURE FOOD LAWS:
International Congresses.

The first International Congress for discussion and action on
the subject of Pure Food was assembled at Geneva in 1908, and
attended by about 600 persons. The second was held at Paris in
October, 1909, and much more largely attended.

PUBLIC HEALTH: PURE FOOD LAWS: United States: A. D. 1906.
Legislation at the end of a long struggle.

Bulletin No. 104 of the Bureau of Chemistry, Department of
Agriculture, entitled "Food Legislation during the year ended
June 30, 1906," introduces the text of National and State laws
enacted that year with the following remarks: "Food
legislation for the year ended July 1, 1906, is the most
important in the history of the United States. A Federal
pure-food bill in various forms has been before Congress
continuously for more than twenty years, and such a bill
became a law on June 30, 1906. On the same day, as part of the
appropriation bill of the United States Department of
Agriculture, in the sections providing for the Bureau of
Animal Industry, important legislation was enacted with
reference to the inspection of meat and meat food products."

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The Federal Food and Drugs Act of June 30, 1906, enacts in its
first section "That it shall be unlawful for any person to
manufacture within any Territory or the District of Columbia
any article of food or drug which is adulterated or
misbranded, within the meaning of this Act; and any person who
shall violate any of the provisions of this section shall be
guilty of misdemeanor, and for each offense shall, upon
conviction thereof, be fined not to exceed five hundred
dollars or shall be sentenced to one year’s imprisonment, or
both such fine and imprisonment, in the discretion of the
court, and for each subsequent offense and conviction thereof
shall be fined not less than one thousand dollars or sentenced
to one year’s imprisonment, or both such fine and imprisonment,
in the discretion of the court."

The second section declares:

"That the introduction into any State or Territory or the
District of Columbia from any other State or Territory or the
District of Columbia, or from any foreign country, or shipment
to any foreign country of any article of food or drugs which
is adulterated or misbranded within the meaning of this Act,
is hereby prohibited"; and penalties are prescribed for
violations of the law, being a fine not exceeding $200 for the
first offense, and for the second offense a fine not to exceed
$300, or imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both, in the
discretion of the court.

Section 3 reads as follows:

"That the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of
Agriculture, and the Secretary of Commerce and Labor shall
make uniform rules and regulations for carrying out the
provisions of this Act, including the collection and
examination of specimens of foods and drugs manufactured or
offered for sale in the District of Columbia, or in any
Territory of the United States, or which shall be offered for
sale in unbroken packages in any State other than that in
which they shall have been respectively manufactured or
produced, or which shall be received from any foreign country,
or intended for shipment to any foreign country, or which may
be submitted for examination by the chief health, food, or
drug officer of any State, Territory, or the District of
Columbia, or at any domestic or foreign port through which
such product is offered for interstate commerce, or for export
or import between the United States and any foreign port or
country."