Arizona republican., 1897-10-21
INEFFECTIVE QUARANTINE.

u0 lu6luCl6HCy Ol tliS ilOIAOuo commonly employed in the south for protection against the spread of vel low fever is constantly receiving fresh illustrations One of the latest is the appearance of the disease in Gal weston. If local quarantine had been in any sense worth the price is inn poses in the shape or interrupted communication and embargOe1 busi- ness, Galveston of all points in the south should have been able to keep itself free from the dread scourge. For many weeks, in fact ever since the first note of alarm, the Texan port has been so tightly closed to New Orleans, Mobile, Ocean Springs and other infected places that it was prac- tically impossible for a person to get in there from those towns. And yet the fever is now found there in all it's virulence. The rigid quarantine maintained at the instance of an ex- aggerated public fear has presumably many dollars and inconvenienced them in many ways, but it has not | protected them.
 Nor is this the only way in which existing quarantine arrangements fail to operate in the interests of the pub lie and for the preservation of the health of the different communities where they are employed. The same communities that are so quick to de- mand that neither persons nor goods points are equally dasirous that no quarantine shall be established against them; and in consequence everything that is possible is done to conceal cases of disease and to mis- represent the real situation. Con- cealment and Justification there have evidently been in Galveston. How the disease reached there and when it is impossible to say; but it came in spite of quarantine and it was there long before the local health authorities and physicians would ad- init that it was present For a month at least, it is said, there have been reports that what was called the den que in the Texan city was in reality the dreaded fever in it's full develop ment. But it was earnestly denied that it was so by those who had To- cal reasons for coneealing the truth.
 Finally, of course, the truth has come to light, but how much unnec- essary danger has been incurred by the delay is evidence enough of the unsatisfactory nature or such meth ods. Yet that is the way things are likely to go unuer the local heal h board system Under this system the local authorities alone have any right to investigate cases of suspected con- tagious disease. They can forbid all ! inquiries from outside. That was done, indeed, in Mobile and at Ocean Springs; it has also been done at Gal weston. The authorities of the lat ter city, in fact, actually .threatened to pass a law making it a penal of- fense to circulate stories of the pres ence of infectious disease ehere Un-
  ble to expect any very effective check to the progress of a scourge like that which is now aff1icting the south. Each community that is anxious to avoid quarantine against itself can, and will, cover up the disease for a month or more, spreading it through d all the neighboring towns. Calves ton is by no means the only place that played that game this year.
 The remedy, of course, and the fairly reasonable promise of effective protection is to put the entire mat. ter in the hands of the federal gov ernment. If that were done the inf1u ence of local fears and local selfish : ness would be alike removed Ther, would be an end of concealment O the truth in the interests of one To caity's business as against that o another; there would be an end of tn
 frantic orders of local boards o health, elected perhaps at mass meet ings or even self constituted, tyin. up the commerce of the country, stop ping the mails and committing eve greater excesses; there would be n more shot gun quarantines, which ar to the orderly preservation of pubii health very much what lynching i to the regular administration of jus tice. Indeed, under strictly scientifi
 measures, such as it is to be presum ed the federal officials would alon use, the use of quarantine restric ! tions would be greatly reduced any