City in Sound; Board of Health

Good evening. I'm Jim Hurl, but I'm ready to explore with you another bit of life in this burgeoning metropolis in the city and sound. Tonight, the story of the Chicago Health Department and the men and women who toil unceasingly to protect the health of the city, some with test tubes, others with statistics. Many are veterans in the city's service. None has been there longer than the man at the top. The president of the Board of Health, Dr. Herman and Bunnesson. I don't know about other people, but when I think of the Board of Health in Chicago, I think of Dr. Herman and Bunnesson, and I guess people have been thinking about Dr. Herman and Bunnesson in that connection for a long time. Is that right? Oh yes, many, many years. I started in the health department in 1914 for one year. I just decided I would stay for one year, and I started as a health officer at $70 a month, and then I just stayed on and on and on and went up and up and up, and then I was appointed health commissioner in 1922 for one year. I

just took it for one year, but the one year just hasn't gotten around yet, but you see. It's a long year that keeps running a long, long, long year, and I don't feel the day older than I did when I came in, and when you talk about 1914 and go to 24 and 34 and 44 and 54, you almost get a half a century, but I still keep myself active and rigorous. Dr. is a half a century of great service to the city of Chicago, not only your personal service, but the service of the Board of Health in general, and the Board of Health covers a great many things. And perhaps from you, we could hear just what things go on in the Board of Health and why it is so important to Chicago. I think a good way to start that is to start with the President of the Board of Health, the first thing every morning when he gets in, what's the first thing that he does? He looks straight ahead from where you and I are sitting now, and he looks at a man.

And then he says, what's happened in the last 24 hours? Has any polio occurred? Has any diphtheria occurred? What's the situation in so far as the health is concerned? How about the newborn babies? Are they properly taken care of? Are they dying? Are the mothers dying? Because not of good care. All of those things are the things that we check back every day. We know every person that dies every day. We know every mother that is going to have a baby every day. About 200 new babies are born every day. Then we see that contagious diseases are under control. We haven't had a case of diphtheria for so long that now the medical schools want to know how are we going to teach our doctors to recognize diphtheria or typhoid fever or things of that kind when you don't have them anymore. And that is because of the cooperation that we get from the doctors and the nurses and the 1200 people that are manning the health department. And it is the work that they do

in the time and energy that they give that makes Chicago a wonderful healthy city. It's the healthiest, largest city in the world. It's the safest, largest city in the world to have a baby because every baby that's born, we visit and see that it does have care. It wasn't always that way in Chicago. The 1914, for example, there were many babies born and there were many newborn babies died. Oh yes. Oh yes, because the system has changed now that we know so much to save newborn babies now. Well, you have a great many people working in the healthy department and your operation goes on 24 hours a day. Yes, 24 hours a day. We never close. And in a moment's notice, we are out on the job. People say to me, well, you're pretty fortunate. You don't have any more epidemics. I say, oh, we have epidemics every day. He said, well, what kind of epidemics? Oh, we may

have a epidemic of polio. Well, what do you mean an epidemic of polio? To us, one case is an epidemic because if we get that one case and treat it as an epidemic, then we don't get the second and the third and so much is known with the vaccines and they end up by addicts. All we have to do is to get the people to understand, to expose the knowledge that we have to, the cleansing light of a universal understanding. Of course, doctor, a lot of the work of the Board of Health, you delegate down through different departments and a lot of the things you do firsthand. I've seen you go out and give hypodermis to people who trapped and collapse buildings in the city. And I've seen you out day and night on the job. But actually, you do delegate this work to various divisions in the Department of the Board of Health Department. What are the separate divisions? Well, the first division where we usually started would be where we start with life. And that is down on the first floor where the birth certificates are recorded. There are some 100 ,000 babies born in Chicago every year and every one of those under the

law must be reported. So we have a record of every baby that is born so the nurses can go out and they can be properly protected. And then on the other side of the first floor, we have where they go out of the world. And that is where the death certificates are. And there, in order to get buried, you have to come to the Board of Health. And that's where that statistical group is on the first floor. Then on the second floor, we have the Bureau of Food Inspection and Sanitation mainly where the executives send out the groups of people that go into the field that we have the executive department is on the third floor here where the office of the president of the board who is the chief executive officer's eye. And also the communicable disease section where all communicable diseases, contagious diseases, all activities go on. And then we have the clerical department that sees that all the statistics are taken. And around

the clock, 24 hours, the phone never is dead. There is always somebody there to answer it. Sir, what are you typing over here? Well, I'm typing a telephone message. And that's part of the clerical work that you do here at the Board of Health. Yes, it is. Are you one of the secretaries in here? Yes, I am. What's your name? Alice Alman. How long have you been with the Board of Health? Seven years. Have you? Do you like the work here? Very much. And you're just an important part of the life of Chicago? Well, I'm pretty sure it is because from the number of calls we get pretty sure I'm in a very... What kind of phone call do you get? Oh, we get telephone calls. No summer complaints. They're not always this department, but we get complaints sometimes. No, just so many too. Yeah, I don't know just specifically. People all over the city call the Board of Health with a great variety of questions in which they're intimately concerned. Yes, that's right. You try to answer those questions one way or another. We certainly do. Thank you.

Thank you. You've got a busy office out here. Yes, we have, Jim. Very busy. You're William Ryan, the administrative head of the Board of Health. Just what does that cover anyway? Well, that covers Jim, the administration, the proper functioning of all the clerical disposition, the records and payrolls, the bookkeeping, and some policy making in that line. How many people work for the Board of Health? There's approximately 1022, Jim. They're not all here in this building? No, no. Over half of them are out of the building. Where are they located when they're out of the building? Some of them, the food and inspectors, of course, are working around the districts throughout Chicago. The Darian inspectors are out in three states. Is that right? That's right. All the places where the note comes from, that's right. That covers Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Illinois, four states. And then we have, of course, the hospital located at a 30 -person California. That's the contagious, contagious. And then we have throughout the city, 40 -info welfare stations, where our nurses work on them. And we have a welfare attendance in our

clinics. Was the Board of Health occupy this entire building? No, sir. There are four or five other offices in this building with us. I know you're busy, can I ask another question? No, if you're anything you want, Jim. I guess it must be still in your particular lines that you're responsible for all of this. Except one question, don't ask me how long I've been here. How long have you been here, by the way? Be 38 years next month. See, that's a long time. You know, a good deal of the background of the building itself, don't you? This Board of Health building. Yes, I do. We came in here after it was remodeled in 1939. It was remodeled on a WPA project in 1939. Prior to that time, of course, we were in the city hall with the rest of the office. Well, what was this building originally? The criminal court building. And is this all the criminal court building as a county jail in this building, too? The criminal court building is where we're now in. The county jail was behind this out here, which is now vacant property. That was torn down. All of it? All of it. It was the exception of what is known as we understand the death house. They're still waiting, I think, for Tommy to come back.

Terrible Tommy or Conner? That's right. And the law said that he was going to be hanged by the neck until dead. That's right. He escapes. Has never been found? That's right. And that's why the death house is still there. Well, that's where we're told to believe. We don't know whether that's really true or not, but that's what they tell us. In the meantime, what are you using it for? Garage. Garage for the Board of Health. That's right. Good use for the death house. Yes, sir. You're Frank Bauer and you're in charge of the statistical division. That's correct. The division of statistics. Frank, there's a great need for statistical information and healthy part of the city, isn't there? Yes, there is. We get information on various illnesses, reportable illnesses to the Board of Health. We carry on research projects on polio myelitis, on heart disease, and infant deaths. How does this information collected? How does it come in here? Well, it's required to be collected by law. That is the information on all births and deaths has to be reported to the Board of Health. And on all

reportable diseases, communicable diseases, and so forth. In other words, every baby that's born in the city of Chicago, you have a record of that birth. That's right. You know, where it happened? When? What else? Do you have a way of information of that sort? Well, we have the birth weight, any birth complications, so that we can make medical research studies on that information. What happens to the information that you collect? Well, he prepared tabulations, various types that we use here in the Board of Health, and then we forward information to the state office and to the National Office of Statistics, where it's combined for the whole country. Now, you mentioned the study made here in polio myelitis. Could you tell us something about that? That was a study made when we had 1111 cases in 1956, which was quite an outbreak of polio in the city of Chicago. We studied the effects of giving the vaccine to people

during an outbreak. That had never been done before Dr. Bunnesson did that in the outbreak. When you say the vaccine, I mean the shock vaccine? Yes, I'm sorry. That's right. And we found that it helped to give that vaccine during the outbreak rather than make the outbreak flare up greater than it would have been ordinarily. In the city of the size of Chicago, I suppose statistical studies of this sort are more valuable than they would be in a smaller community because we have more to weigh the results on. That's right. We have a large enough numbers of cases so that they are significant statistically, yes. Are you currently engaged in a particular type of study? Well, yes. We're engaged in heart disease control studies. And in a rheumatic fever registry, we have a registry on every rheumatic fever case in the city of Chicago. Drugs are administered through this program

to help reduce rheumatic fever. Actually, people think of the statistics as dry as dust figures, but there's a great deal more than just the simple figures on a page in the business of collecting statistics about anything at all. Yes, that's true. Statistics is not a dry subject. They say that figures don't lie, but lie is figured to use no cliché. But there is a very great value in the statistical division of a government, whether it's a municipal government or a federal government. That's correct, yes. Do you think that we could get along without statistics? Oh, I'm sure we couldn't. We need to know the number of people that we have in the city. We have to know the population. We wouldn't have any way of knowing if we had an epidemic or not. The number of cases would mean nothing unless we knew how many people were involved. I know your name is Edward F. King, but what is the Department of the Board of Health that you are

particularly concerned with? Our division is the division of regulatory inspection and environmental health. It's a big title. What does it involve? Well, it involves the safeguarding of the city's food, milk and beverage supplies and the attention that we give to environmental health factors such as rat control work, insect control and certain aspects of air pollution and water, sanitary water control. And breaking it down and talking about it, where would you start? Well, I think I would start this way that in Chicago's Grade A milk program, employees of the Board of Health working for the public will go out into the country and inspect the cows, the farms, check the cows for health freedom from tuberculosis and then follow the milk supply right in through the pasteurizing plant to the customer's doorstep. This is our effort to ensure that our children and our adults have a safehold of milk supply. Our food supplies are likewise safeguarded. We inspect the establishments where they're processed and the

raw materials as they're brought in. A while back in Chicago, we had what we referred to as the horsemeat scandal. Did that come within the Department of the Church in particular? This was in the Bureau of Food Inspection. And while we do not think it was a scandal, we think that it did point up certain deficiencies in the city ordinance, which were quickly remedied and corrected. We put additional staff onto the meat inspection. And since that time, over 75 ,000 samples of meat have been collected in Chicago from both wholesale and retail channels and outlets. And not one single sample of horsemeat has been turned up. What happens to these samples when they're collected? Are they brought into essential headquarters? These samples are brought into this building here and submitted by our field inspector to the Division of Laboratories, where they're giving a careful screen. They're subjected to various laboratory procedures, which identify them as to the type of

meat and the wholesomeness of the product, freedom from chemical adoration, and a variety of other tests that they're subjected to. What are some of the other things your department's concerned with? Well, we're concerned with the safety of the beverages, the soft drinks, the various food establishments are reading and drinking establishments, restaurants and hotels. We feel that Chicago has the safest eating places of any large city in the United States. We're constantly inspecting them and pushing to clean up, to improve the sanitary condition and the wholesomeness of our food supply. You mean a visitor from Mexico City is a lot safer eating here than we are eating down in Mexico? I would buy that 100%. Having been in both places, I can assure you from my experience that there's no comparison, but they are trying down in Mexico City. We've had those people from that city as many other foreign nationals coming in here to learn how to control some of these problems. They're just beginning to develop programs, and I'm sure given a period of time, a number of years, they will raise the level of sanitation and food handling in their cities, and

also in their countries we have people from Japan and from Germany. It seems every second week we have a new visitor here coming to see Dr. Bundeson to learn a little bit about public health control. What are some of the other things they see in your department? Well, in our department, in addition to milk and meat control and beverages, we carry out extensive rat control programs whereby we send crews out into the city. They poison and gas the public ways pass out education material, provide movies for civic groups and lectures, in an attempt to get rid of rat harbors to provide adequate storage of garbage to clean up our town. This is really a medicine, a city of this size, isn't it, this rat? It can well be if it gets out of control, and particularly we're worried about our program in Chicago, we've put special emphasis on it because we're now going to become an international seaport with the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway, and there's the possibility that we could bring in diseases that are not known to our citizens that are transmitted through the rat and might come in from foreign shipments. Sounds like

the work in your department is a 24 hour day job. That it is. There's very seldom that a night goes by that either myself or some members of my staff are out on the street, and of course all day long. I know you're busy up here, doctor. This is the laboratory for, isn't it, at the Board of Health? It is. You're Dr. Robert McFate. Dr. would you mind telling me what's going on up here? In this chemistry laboratory, we examine meat, various other food materials, for the addition of illegal preservatives, contaminations of any type, so that we can be sure that the citizens of Chicago are getting pure, wholesome food. I actually over here on one of the long counters, I see some meat samples out on the counter. Where do they come from? These meat samples come from all of the meat markets

throughout Chicago. Specimens of various types of meat, but more especially hamburger are picked up. We examine hamburger for the illegal preservatives that will keep hamburger fresh for a longer period than if the preservative was not present. These preservatives are not permitted by the city code, so when they are found to be present, it is necessary for us to take these market dealers to the courts so that they can keep their meat fresh without the assistance of these illegal products. Could I go over here and talk to this chap who is working with the meat? Hi. How do you do, sir? What is your name? My name is John Memes. John, what do you do with this

meat to detect the presence of these preservatives that Dr. McFate was talking about? Well, this meat here is a ground hamburger or various types of ground beef and it's run to test for the presence of sulfites. How do you do that? We use the, let's acetate reduction method. Do you do this all day long? Well, we do it in the morning and we have various other tests that come in. For various other things. That's right, yes, sir. You should be pretty busy. Oh, yes, it does, sir. An important part of the work of the Board of Health is in the field of communicable diseases, isn't that right, Dr? Certainly is, you. And your Dr. Samuel Antelman? Right, and that's your problems. Yes, sir. What does that cover? That covers the control of communicable disease in the city of Chicago and includes the prevention of disease, especially. When we talk about communicable diseases, what particular ones are important? The important ones are those infectious contagious diseases which may be transmitted from

one person to another, like what? Like the measles, diphtheria, scarlet fever, chickenpox, whooping cough, polio myelitis. Of course, we've had a remarkable success here in Chicago with the SOC vaccine in the field of polio. We certainly have, and if I may, I'd like to relate that just a moment. In the last few years, just since the SOC polio myelitis vaccine has been available to us, we've given over six million doses in the city of Chicago. And we feel that that has been a great deterrent in the incidence of polio myelitis as compared, for example, 1956, whereas we had 111 cases in 1957 that was cut down to 27 cases and in 1958, we only had 16 cases. How did we have two deaths? Yes, we had two deaths in 1958. I was compared to about 36 deaths in 1956 and about 4 deaths

in 1957. And I believe this is a remarkable, has a remarkable statistical significance in as much as we see that throughout the nation, 1958 was somewhat a little higher incidence of polio myelitis than there was a previous year. Actually, the city of Chicago stacks up very well against all the other major cities of the nation, doesn't it, in the field of public health? Not only very well, but Jim, if I may express it, I think it's tops in the nation, and we have people coming here from all over the world visiting, there are techniques in the modern skills and art in which we employ our epidemiological technique here. For example, we don't merely contact those that are reflected with the disease, but we see all the people involved in their families and surrounding territory, and we also go into the sociological, the ethnic and economic background of the individuals. And all of

this doesn't cost the taxpayers one bit more than if we had a second rate operation. You're certainly right, Jim. That's exactly right. And that's the story of Chicago's Board of Health, best in the nation. That's also the city of sound. Engineer George for sale to the highest bidder.