Many practices which are required by law in cities where the population is crowded are not required or are not enforced in country districts, since there the failure to carry out protective measures reacts only on those immediately concerned. Disinfection of rooms in which contagious diseases have occurred is one such provision. It rarely happens that a health officer of a country community concerns himself with seeing that a case of scarlet fever, for example, is prevented from spreading by a thorough disinfection of the rooms. That seems to be left to the good sense of the individual. It is hardly conceivable that a mother with three or four children (when one child has been sick with a contagious disease) will neglect ordinary and reasonable precautions to prevent the spread of that disease to the rest of the family. It is inconceivable, when the small amount of trouble and expense is considered, that the parents of a family, after a case of diphtheria, will neglect to fumigate and disinfect the clothing and bedding which may be thus infected, particularly if such clothing or bedding is to be used by other members of the family; and yet instances are recorded where a child has died of scarlet fever and a year later another child, perhaps wearing some of the clothes of the previous victim, has been seized with the disease and has followed its brother or sister to the grave. Cases of tuberculosis have been known to follow each other almost year after year, as one member of a family after another occupied a room where the infection persisted, either in the carpet or furniture, which was never properly disinfected. Such cases must be left to the good sense, intelligence, and understanding of the persons concerned. The police power can never in this age take the place of an enlightened sense in the community, nor are laws, as a matter of fact, of any use except as they are sustained and enforced by public sentiment. QUALITY OF WATER There is another way in which the police power of the state exercises control over rural communities, and that is in the matter of food which the country generally supplies to the city. Perhaps the pollution of water, which is, after all, one kind of food, is as important as any matter covered by health laws.