San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1897-10-14
CLEAN BILL 0F HEALTH
San AntOniO'S Priceless
Gift From Dr.. SWear0ngen.
A PARTICULARLY WARM MEET
ING OF The ClTY'S BOARD
OF HEALTH.
Mayor CalIaghan'S Lively Tilt
With President PaSchal-Will
Have Him Fire" DIR. Had
"a Will ReSign-A New
f. Board Probable.

The liveliest meeting Of the board Of
health ever held in San Antonio took
place this morning in the city coun-
Gil chamber from IL o'clock until near
ly one p. n.
The meeting was precipitated by DIR.
Paschal, the president, calling meet
ing for IL o'clock to be held in his office
in the Hicks building. AS soon as
Mayor Callaghan heard of this he tel
| ephoned DR.. Paschal and informed
] him in positive terms that the board
should lawfully meet in the city hall
and if a meeting was to be held 1T
must be held there. The board then
| adjourned to the city hall, DR.. Swear
ingen, state health officer accompany
ing them in order to present his re-
port as the result of his investigation
of the suspicious case of yellow fever
of the late Harvey Griffin. At the
city hall DR.. Swearingen wrote out his
report and then the meeting convened,
DR.. Paschal presiding. He stated the
object of the meeting to be to hear
DR.. Swearingen' report.
Mayor Callaghan arose and asked
permission to be allowed to thank DR..
Swearingen in the name of the city
for coming to San Antonio and that
he admired his course in the present
excitement throughout.
DR.. Swearingen's report was then
read as follows:
In response to your invitation have
this day visited the city hospital and
Santa Rosa hospital and respectfully
report that find many cases of dem
que and some few with evidences of
jaundice, but none that show any indi-
cations of yellow fever. Concerning
the gentleman who died a few days
ago and who was classed as suspicious
1 beg to say:
The symptoms clearly justified the
position taken by the board of health
and in my opinion they would have
been derelict in duty had they not iso-
lated the case as they did do. The
history of the case satisfies me that it
was not yellow fever, but most heart
lily endorse the action Of the health au-
thorities.
thorities. R. M. swEARINGEN.
State Health Officer.
DR.. Burg moved to accept the report
and thank DR.. Swearingen.
DR.. Berry arose to speak but not be-
ing a member of the board was declar-
ed out of order.
The mayor said DR.. Berrey was coun-
ty health officer and the city and
county were one in this matter.
The chair ruled against him that DR..
Berrey should speak and stated the
motion and declared it was open for
| discussion.
Mayor Callaghan stated that he had
asked DR.. Swearingen to come over on
account of the diversity of opinion on
the suspicious case and had never
doubted the correctness of the boards
action of Monday, but did object to
the manner in which it was done.
DR.. Hadra said that not member Of
the board had insisted the case was
yellow fever. Those who declared 1t
suspicious was majority of the board.
The mayor-No it was the minority.
The majority, Drs. Burg and Barnitz
and Mayor Callaghan voted against 1t,
Hadra-The action was rather hasty
We should have handled the case like
| we did the case of small pox. But
the board did its duty in saying it was
suspicious case.
Burg-He was opposed to Hadra's
position. In analysing the symptoms
of the case and its history not a single
fact indicated it as yellow fever, but
was plainly malarial fever. He was
opposed to it being called even sus.
picious.
DIR. Paschal, took the floor. Mayor