St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1879-08-08
The Newark Scourge.

The Newark ScOurSes
The following is an abstract of the
official report made to the National
Board of Health at Washington, d. c.,
nv DR.. Elisha Harris, who was sent by
that association to thoroughly lnvestl-
gate the causes of the late Newark dis
aster:
In the fourth school district of the
township of Newark, amidst the steep
hills, where reside a quiet people in
comfortable dwellings, the summer term
of school opened on the 18th of May.
Among the twenty-five little children
who assembled in the school room in
the glen were two who had suffered
mild attack of diphtheIia in April, and
one of them was, at the time school
opened, suffering badly from what ap-
peared to have been relapse in the
form of diphtheritic ophthalmia. Be-
sides, it is proved that these recently
sick pupils had not been well cleansed,
one of them having on an unwashed
garment that she had worn in all her
sickness three weeks previously.
At the end of the third day of school,
several of the children were complain
ing of sore throat, headache, and dizzi-
ness, and on the fourth day and evening
so many were sick in the same way
that the teacher and officers announced
the school temporarily closed. By the
end of the sixth day from school open
ing, Is of the % previously healthy
children became seriously sick with
symptoms of malignant diphtheria, and
some were already dying. The teacher
and six of the pupils were not attacked,
nor have they since suffered with the
disease. This exception of few, the
excessive rapidity of the invasion, the
progress of the malady among the 10
pupils, the septic@mia in the first 9
cases that died, taken in connection
with much complaining by the children
of the water in the brook from which
most of them drank, led to vehement
accusations against the water, and also
against the farmer from whose barns
and yards land the grave-pit of year
ling colt buried IA months previously
near the bank of the streamlet) wish
BILE stream of sewage entered just above
the place where the children obtained
water. The reporter regards the pol
luted water simply accessory in prOduc-
ing the fatal results, an analysis made
by Prof. Cutting furnishing no positive
evidence of it's unhealthfulness.
The pupils came from nine house.
holds, and the Is so suddenly and al
most simultaneously attacked came
from eight of the families. The except
ed family suffered from diphtheria a
year ago in distant town. In these
eight families suddenly invaded by
diphtheria there were at the time So
persons including the Is pupils, who
had not, and four who had suffered
from diphtheria this year. In the eight
families there were some IL other cases
of the malady, making 80 in all. Among
these there were twelve deaths, nine
being school children.
The malady attacked in turn a large
number of those caring for the school
children-17 at least, and through the
latter extended to four or more other
families.
To June 18th the disease had invad-
ed Is households, in which resided 90
persons, AZ of whom suffered with the
disease.
Overlapping a great number of house
holds and groups of children-nO less
than 20 families and two district schools
the disease was prOpagated in dwell
ings only where were the sick or their
defiled garments. The primary cases
in the dwelling on the bog are the ex-
captions.
The sudden development of excessive
virulence and activity of the virus, by
which the disease is prOpagated and
made destructive, offers an important
lesson, and as it is associated with a
crowded school room, polluted water
brook supplying dangerous beverage
to the pupils in heated and sodden
nook of a glen, and attended with the
presence of one child whose uncleansed
garment and whose eyelids, loaded with
presumably contagious matter, supplied
ample causes for propagation of the
malady, there remains no mystery in
this outbreak.
Thus in one of the most salubrious
regions, where the annual death rate
seldom exceeds Is in the 1000 living
Inhabitants, and where nature proffers
the purest air and water, with ample
nourishment and separateness of fami-
lies, are witnessed the combination and
progress of the causes which enter into
the most rapid and destructive propa-
CATION of malignant diphtheria.