The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1893-09-08
sTAMpEpED BY PLAGUE.
An o,tbraak of Malignant Diphtheria at
Summer Resort-seventy People Sick
and the Disease Spreading.

desnatch from Stonington, Conn,
10 tbe Springfield Republican says:
nv s,,r,rner settlers of Fishers Island,
.bo,,t oono in all have been stampeded
s and mt to f1ipht by the appearance of
mvsterious diptheretic plague there
within a week, which has already killed
three neonle and brought seventy more to
beds Of illness The widest sort of
scare has been prevailing In consequence,
as the bad news spread IKE wlldhre,
and since last Sunday summer people
have been swarming from the island by
hundreds and the season there, which
nromised to beverly successful, has been
ruined The loss to hotel keepers will
amount to thousands OF dollars. Every
trim. the island steamer makes daily to
the Connecticut shore she is loaded down
with baggage and passengers. Addltlonal
medical aid has been summoned to help
the half score of doctors already at work
on the island to ascertain what the
dreaded and fatal malady is. The health
authorities call it malignant diphtheria
and are taking every precautlon to 9uard
agaipts the spread of the disease from the
passage of the dead bodies through
shore towns on the way TO unelr lae1
resting places.
The disease came Immediately after the
last hurricane Of last week and since
then from 40 to 80 people have been down
with sore throats on the island. ne
first one to die from it was Mrs Julius q.
Newton of Brattleboro, VT, wife OF the
head farmer of the island she was 10
husband, who was heart broken, declared
that she had died of Malignant diph-
liberia and this started the scare and the
resulting rush of summer people rom
the island to their homes on the main
land. Fishers Island is tenanted mainly
in summer by wealthy ciasssof cottagers
The disease seems to have originated
about the Bartlett cottages at Little Hay
harbor, but now it has become SO wide
spread that it is all over the island. A
little child of +. M. Ferguson of Pitts
burg. Pa a, partner of Andrew Carnegie,
is down with it. Mr.. Ferguson at once
telegraphed for Instantly physician who
is summering at Hyannlsport, Mass, ana
the island steamer made special trip
to the mainland at midnight, night be-
fore last, to meet the physician and take
him to the bedside of the sick child.
The next deaths were those of Bayard
Irving an eight years old child of Lieut..
Irving of the New York naval reserve,
and Mrs John F. Lawrence, the middle
aged, wife of wealthy resident OF Staten
Island Both of these families live on
Staten Island and both bodies were
shipped there tonight, the island steamer
making an extra trip late this evening
and putting the bodies abroad steamer
said to be the City of Worcester OF the
Norwich line for shipment to New York
and thence to Staten Island. ,
The severest precautions have been
taken in shipping all the bodies, They
have been wrapped in sheets soaked in a
solution of corrosive sublimate and then
placed in air-tight Baskets. The ship
ping of the bodies to the mainland to-
night after dark was a precaution not
observed in the Newton woman's case
and seems to show that the authorities
are greatly exercised over. possible
spread of the contagion. The season at
the island is hopelessly ruined. Not
more than $50 summer people are left
there and they are going away as rapidly
as possible. The rush from the island
seem to grow with every day. 1t is said
that other deaths aresexpected. Every
endeavor has been made to keep the
fact of the contagion a secret and it did
not leak out until today. All the hotels
are closed. Many attribute the malady
to imperfect drainage. he doctors
agree that the disease is some form OF
diptheria.