Her two daughters were sent to an
eastern college. One June when one of them had graduated and the
other still had two years before she took her degree, they came
to the spotless little house and their self-sacrificing mother
for the summer holiday. They both fell ill with typhoid fever
and one daughter died because the mother's utmost efforts could
not keep the infection out of her own house. The entire disaster
affords, perhaps, a fair illustration of the futility of the
individual conscience which would isolate a family from the rest
of the community and its interests.
The careful information collected concerning the juxtaposition of
the typhoid cases to the various systems of plumbing and
nonplumbing was made the basis of a bacteriological study by
another resident, Dr. Alice Hamilton, as to the possibility of
the infection having been carried by flies. Her researches were
so convincing that they have been incorporated into the body of
scientific data supporting that theory, but there were also
practical results from the investigation. It was discovered that
the wretched sanitary appliances through which alone the
infection could have become so widely spread, would not have been
permitted to remain, unless the city inspector had either been
criminally careless or open to the arguments of favored
landlords.
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