The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1882-01-01
THE DALLAS HERAlD, SUNDAY MORNING. JANUARY l. ,s>e.
rHEsRawINs scouRGE.

THE GROWING sCOURGE.
1t has been one OF the blessings that this
country has enjoyed for years past that no
general pestilence has ravaged our homes.
Certain localities have indeed, suffered,
and greatly too, but heretofore the pop
ulation has been so widely scattered and
intercommunicaton has been so meagrs
between different localities, that unless
there were peculiar local causes for the
organization and spread of an
epidemic, the various commu'
mites have been singularly healthy. Now
things are changed. The States have be-
come thickly populated, railroads and
mails penetrate every known quarter al
most and continuous and remarkably
close intercourse has sprung up between
the many sections until Maine is now as
practically near Texas as Mississippi was
fifteen or twenty years ago. Distance
and formality have been annihilated
and we are now really one family. Such
progress has, it is of course true, its graft
flying features and is indispensable to higher
development, but it carries along with it
its dangerous possibilities. 1t increases
crime and multiplies paupers, outlines with
saddcr tints the discrepancies in mans con-
diti0n, but its chiefest evil is the imminence
and opportunities for the propagation of
deadly diseases. Some maladies in
deed nature has built climatic
wall around, but others go wher-
ever man goes and flourish most
violently where civilization is brightest. or
these none are more contagious and loath-
some than the smallpox, land it is the open
secret of the Union that it is growing in ex-
tent and viralence all over the land. 1t has
already gone TO Americas four points of
the compass, and We think it is now about
time every State and town were taking &C.
tive precautionary measures. Our own
State and Dallas should at once
set to work to put themselves
and citizens III condition to
TO meet the desoation ii it should That it
will appear in Texas, has already in fact, is
beyond doubt, and it would be childishly
foolish to wait longer to note results. The
New York Herald has sounded the true
alarm and we commend the following clip
ping from that great journal to the atten-
tion of our State and municipal authorities:
"The announcement that the cases so
smallpox in the city this year, as compared
with those Of last year are as eighteen to
one, should warn every one to take proper
precautions against the loathsome disease.
Vaccination is the only known preventive,
for avoidance of the germs of the disease is
simply impossible wherever cases are nu-
merouS. The operation OF vaccinatng
in short, cheap and almost painless; so
there is no poss ible excuse for neglccting it.
Prevention on large scale can be secured
by vaccination of every immigrant who en-
ters an American port, and Congress should
make such prevention compulsory. A sim
gle case of smallpox in Storage full Of
immigrants may cause the disease to break
out In dozen different States, even il the
people who carry the infection in their
clothing are not themselves stricken down.
A compulsory vaccination law should be
passed, il only for the benefit of New York,
for the worst of the immigrants always re-
main here and find their way into tcne-
mcnts almost as closely packed as ships
storage and a great deal dirtier."