Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1879-07-25
DIPHTHERIA IN NORTHERN YER
MONT.

DIPHTIIERlA IN NORTHERN YER
MONT.
The following is an abstract of the
official report made to the National
Board of Health at Washington, d. c.,
by DIR. Elisha Harris, who was sent by
that association to thoroughly investi-
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 % little children who
assembled in the schoOl-room in the
glen were two who had suffered a mild
attack of diphtheria in April, and one
of them was, at the time school opened,
suffering badly from what appeared to
have been a relapse in the form Of
diphtheritic ophthalmia. Besides, it
is proved that these recently sick
pupils had no. been well cleansed, one
of them having on an unwashed gar
ment 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 threats, headache, and dir
illness, and on the fourth day and even
ing 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, 16 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 inva-
sion, the progress of the malady among
the 16 pupils, the septic8mia in the
first cases that died, taken in connec-
ton with much complaining by the
children of the foul taste 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 yearling colt
buried IA months previously near the
bank of the streamlet) a visible stream
of sewage entered just above the place
where the children obtained water.
The reporter regards the polluted wa
ter simply as accessory in producing
the fatal results, an analysis made by
Prof. Cutting furnishing no positive
evidence of its unhealthfulness.
The pupils came from nine house
holds, and the 16 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 56
persons including the IS pupils who
had not, and four who had, suffered
from diphtheria this year. In the eight
families there were some II other cases
Among these there were twelve deaths,
nine being school children.
The malady attacked in turn 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 invaded
Is households, in which resided 90 per-
sons, 48 of whom suffered with the dis
ease.
Overlapping great number of house
holds and groups of children-no less
than 90 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 in April,
before the epidemic began, 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 O.
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, sup
piled 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
nouriskment and separateness of fami-
lies, are witnessed the combination and
progress of the causes which enter into
the most rapid and destructive propaga-
ton of malignant diphtheria.
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