The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1897-03-30
9YPnOID IN RUBBER.
LambertviIle Scared BY a Rumor
That Bubonie Disease
Was There.
Special to the JERSEY Citl, Neacs.

$1,000
LAMBERTYILLE, March 80, 1S97.-The
rumors that have recently been afoat in
this community concerning the nature
and cause of the epidemic which has re-
suited in the death of eight employees of
the Lambertvilie Rubber Company have
tended to establish an u~nwarranted
quarantine and nave aroused no little
Indignation on the part of those who
have been fully acquainted with the cir
cumstances.
The facts are as follows:-SeveraI en-
ployes of the boot and shoe room at
the rubber mill were taken suddenly i'll
about three weeks ago. Others suisse
quently were also stricken, and several
deaths followed in quick succession. The
local physicians who had charge Of the
cases promptly diagnosed them as ty-
phoid fever, but some one started the
story that the disease was of a much
more malignant character-in short, that
It was nothing less than the bubonic
plague. which has been rslvaging India
for a year past, and which was supposed
to have been brought here from that
pest-ridden country IN the raw rubber
imported and used at mills in his town.
This feature Of the gossip in connection
with the prevailing epidemic was sum
marily put a stop to by the discovery
that all the rubber stock used at the mills
came from Brazil and not from India;
and, furthermore, it was also made evil
dent that the real cause of the trouble
was a well of impure water from which
the employees had been drinking. Not only
was each and every case of sickness
that Of a mill enploye, but they were
IN a certain department of the establish
ment, where the temperature was neces-
sarilly kept very high, ard where the
large quantities of the polluted water
during the day,
When Investigation developed the inn
started to tie effect that a discharged
sSfnploye had put poison in the well. The
local health authorities, however, had
me water of the well analysed and
81 typhoid. There were absolutely no
traces of poison. The physicians We're a
nnlt as aga 70 al the cases being typhoid.
sooupIing Ihomases" a post-mortenn ex-
ma was made in one case, SAM
pies OF the blood were sent to Philadel-
phia for examination. and in every in
stance the result confirmed the diagnosis
as typhoid and nothing else.
Geryas Ely, president of the Lambert
vile Board of Health, working in con-
junction With Drs. George l.. Romine, q.
Y. CLOSER and Peter McGilI, in whose
nands nearly all the cases had been,
found the people at the rubber mill ready
ana willing to do everything possible to
arrest the epidemic and allay the unwar-
ranted alarm of a spread of contagion.
Manager Green, of the bber works,
promptly had the fatal well filed up, and
Superintendent Rittenhouse at once had
spigots for hydrant drinking water placed
III all the rooms of the works.
There have been seventeen cases of
typhoid fever all told. Eight of these re-
suited fatally, owing to the thorough
poisoning OF the patients systems by con
slant and excessive use of the polluted
water OF the cases now in hand W
are considered serious and three are
convalescent. Four others are in an in
termediate state.
All are being cared for by a corps of
trained nurses from Philadelphia, under
the supervision of Frank ". Robinson,
inspecting sanitarian. All these arrange
ments have been made at the expense of
the local health authorities. No new
cases have developed since last Satur-
day, and the epidemic is now thought to
have been broken.