The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1892-02-15
TYPHUS FEVER.
FEARS ENTERTAINED OF AN EPI-
DEMIC OF TaE DISEASE.

| Serious Aspect of the Situation.
Health-How the disease Got Past
the Quarantine.
NEW YORK, Feb. 14.--For tho first time
in some years the dangerous yellow flag Of
the board of health is displayed in this
city. The typhus or spotted fever prevails
in the most densely settled tenement dis
tricts in the city. Its discovery has caused
mere anxiety to the health authorities than
a report of smallpox or any other con-
tagious disease excepting cholera. could
possibly give them. Yet if the newspapers
should announce that some thirty or forty
cases Of cholera had broken out in the tene-
ment district. the city would be in some
thing Of panic. Dr. Edison says that
typhus is even more deadly than cholera
more contagious, and in some respects more
difficult to handle
The powers of the board OF health ere au-
tocratic in cases of this kind, and the Off
GERS believe that they will be able to master
the disease SO as to prevent q general cpl
denic.
The health officers are alive to the danger
| of the situation and are using every means
in their power to discover all persons who
| into Celery gardens and be made extremely
profitable.
Every one knows that when once the capa-
| biities Of land in any neighborhood are
made known all the farmers in the vicinity
hasten to develop them. Thus, wherever a
| wide awake, euterprising farmer settles anu
develops the capacity of the land in any
special direction, he makes all the land
| around him more valuable. What has
| been done on one farm it is reasoned can be
done on others. When grape growing began
on the borders of Lake Erie and around the
smaller lakes of Western New York, the
land was thought TO be comparatively val
ueless. 1t was somewhat rough for profit
able grain growing. But as soon as its
aptitude for early ripening of grapes became
known, the land that was scarcely salable
before rapidly appreciated in value. Ever
before getting into bearing it brought price!
based on the possibilities that success or
like lands in the same neighborhood had In
dictated.
1t ought to be part of the business o.
every farmer TO think during the winter
season what special crops promise most sue
cess in his locality and on his farm. H'
need not devote large part OF his land x
them at first. There is risk in all new ex
periments, and by making them on small
scale the danger of serious loss Is ieSsened
By trying one or more experiments VIII
new crops each year, it will tie strange if tn
farmer cannot soon find something tina
pays better than going on in the old ruts
ii When he makes success he eau extend tn
| speciality as widely as he will, until 1t at
serbs most of his laho- and 'emaght, =
sta.isiCG-U 80 been established in this city.
None of the Italians on the Massilia have
as yet come down with the disease, but as
they were fellow passengers with the
! scourge~infected Russians, tE is necessary
that they should. all be under observation
and accounted for. This the health board
is now trying to accomplish. 1t is crafty
ing that physicians attached to the board
| should have displayed so much intelligence
and alacrity in responding to the demands
Of the situation. Only one of them proved
to be coward. He refused to treat the
| fever cases and was permitted to resign. 1t
seeme strange, however, that the Massilia
| should have got past quarantine.
True, the typhus had not developedl then,
but there should have been some knowledge
| that it was in the district whence these
people came. None of the Russians have
left the city of New York, so to that extent
| other localities need not fear the typhus, but
it is not known yet where all the Italians
are, and the case is further complicated by
the fact that some Of the passengers on
the steamer Rugia. which arrived
| req. q, were nCuseQ With the
infected people. Hundreds in the
tenement house, dirt-accumuated districts
in the East Side, where these poor refugees
lived, may have been exposed to :he dis
ease. which, it is said, may not develop for
twenty days, though liable to do so in less
time. The physicians generally commend
the action Of the board OF health. 1t Is de-
clared that, although the disease is very in
fictitious, it is not likely TO spread among
the so-called "better classes" for 1t thrives
in tenements where many people herd TO-
gether in dirt and poverty.