The Portland daily press., 1894-06-15
WHOLESALE VACCINATION.
Quarantine Will Be Declared off at
Togus Tomorrow.

The Story of the Smallpox Scare.-The
Second Case Was Slight Because the
Man was vaccinated.-He Burned the
First Patients Clothing.-The Expense
of the Precautions.
DR.. W. E. Elwell, surgeon at Togus,
is in the city in attendance upon the
medical convention. The quarantine
at the Soldiers Home will be declared
off tomorrow if no new cases of small pox
develop until then and there is little
probability of that. The man who had
the second and slight attack is now able
to sit up and is nearly well. Probably
Saturday and Monday there will be a
great exodus and invasion of old SOL
diers. Daily all the time men are going
away on furloughs and coming to be adj
mitted to the Home. All this has been
stopped during the quarantine and
there has been a great accumulation of
would be arrivals and departures. The
trains that have been nearly empty will
be filed. Also next Saturday will be
Decoration day at the Home. 1t is later
there than elsewhere. SO as to ensure
warmer weather for the old men. This
draws many spectators
When the case of small pox developed
on the 18th of last month, there was of
course much anxiety at Togus.
The man affected was in a ward
in the regular barracks, and
ho oil Ia h cd
rect from Waterbury, Co., and possibly
knew, poor fellow, that he had been
stricken with the dreadful disease.
Every precaution was Immediately taken
Everything that he brought with him
was burned. the ward where he had been
was thoroughly d1sintected, he was
moved to an isolated house, and 81 other
men who had been exposed were sent to
a house on the farm premises and kept
there exclusively by themselves. Quar-
antine was Immediately declared by Gov.
Stephenson, and work begun at once on
a pest house for use in case the disease
should spread. 1t is quite an elaborate
building, capable of receiving twelve
patients. 1t was built in little less
than week and cost several hundred
dollars.
The vaccination of the entire camp
was Immediately begun. Including the
officers and their families, fully 100
people were vaccinated by DR.. Elwell ana
his two assistants, DR.. Libby and DR..
Nutter. The lymph was obtained from
Boston, Washington and Red Wing, Min
nesota, where there are lymph farms,
where cattle are reared and then made
sick with COW pox for the special pur-
pose of securing the lymph, from the
vesicles on the skin, that contains the
germs of the disease. About one halt of
that used at Togus came from Red Wing.
Mimi, because that farm has the repu-
tation of supplying very pure lmyph.
The barn where the sick COWS are is
kept as clean AS Dutch housewives
kitchen. Every effort is made to pre-
vent any foreign material from entering
this precious lymph. 1t was not all OBJ
tanned from Red Wing, and there was
delay in securing it at Togus because the
great demand for it all over he country
at the present time has caused restrict
ed supply. This lymph is sent now-a-
days not as taken from the COW, but in a
dried form on the point of little ivory
lancet. These are called vaccine
points" The ivory lancet is about an
inch long and one-eighth as wide and is
very thin and sharp, so sharp that it
answers the purpose of lancet, and a
4 =. a. L
which adheres to it is then softened with
water and applied to the wound. Each
patient, therefore. has his own special
instrument, which is thrown away when
used. They cost about six cents apiece.
Seventeen hundred of them at Togus
cost the government over 500. This
expense, with that of the new pest
house, and the loss of the small out
building, that was burned after the pa
tient died within it, involved total
expense of from 5000 to $500; all because
this man came to the Home from Water
bury, Conn.,, with the germs of the terri
Bile disease. But that was very cheap
and easy escape, considering the awful
posi- bilities of the situation.
The second case was that of the man
who removed the clothing of the first
patient from the ward and burned it.
Luckily he was vaccinated twelve hours
afterward and therefore had simply a
case of varioloid. The first man had a
very severe case of the most extreme OF
conauent small pox. He was out of his
head an d crazy most of the time.
The twenty-seven men who were ex-
posed and who were confined together at
the farm will be glad enough to be re-
leased Saturday. They have found life
pretty monotonous cooped up together
within the limits of the barn yard
Some of the old fellows have taken to
making and flying kites for diversion,
and big handsome six-foot kites they
were, that sailed into the air to tire.
mendous height
Undou btedly, DR.. Elwell thinks, the
unusual amount of small pox that il
now prevalent throughout the country
is legacy from the Worlds Fair. The
concentration there of so much old cloth