Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1898-10-06
Made an Examination.
EMPORIUM, Pa, Oct

~ oile olHcefS anu MeInDerS OF Une
Shipper Township School Board:
GENTLEMEN
In accordance with your request
have, Thursday, Sept. 29th, 1898,
made a thorough and searching
examination of the conditions and sur
roundings of your school at Beech
wood, Pa, with regard to the following
points:
First-As to whether there is now,
or has recently been any disease in the
residence of d. G. kirkpatrick, of the
above school district, which would
render it dangerous to the health of
other school children for members of
said d. G. Kirkpatrick's family to at
tend the public school of the district.
Second-As to whether there is any
evidence that the disease which has
prevailed in this locality, during the
past summer, and from which three
patients have died, was any other than
typhoid fever.
| have the honor, gentlemen, to re-
port: First-that d. G. Kirkpatrick
himself is at the present time GONZALES
cling from an attack of pneumonia,
which is not contagious disease, and
that Mrs. Kirkpatrick and a five year
old son who have been sick, with what
have no doubt to have been typhoid
fever, have entirely recovered, and
that there is no danger whatever to
the public health incurred by any of
the members of this family attending
the public schools.
Second-The evidence | have been
able to secure as to the origin, spread
and general course of the disease
brings me to the conclusion that there
need be no doubt whatever but that
the disease which prevailed in this sec
ton during the past season and which
was called typhoid fever by the at
tending physician, was typhoid fever
and nothing else. Typhoid fever,
gentlemen, is serious disease and the
fact that, under decidedly adverse sur
roundings, a few of the cases failed to
recover is not valid reason for cast
ing doubt on the diagnosis. There is
a great deal of popular misunderstood
ing with regard to the manner in
which typhoid fever is spread. This
fever is not a contagious disease in the
same sense in which scarlet fever,
small pox and measles are contagious.
Typhoid fever is taken through the
mouth, stomach and intestines, and in
no other way.
If spring or well is contaminated
by secretions from a typhoid fever
patient every person drinking water
from that source, before it is thoroughly
disinfected, is liable to have typhoid
fever, and every COW drinking such
infected water is liable to pass the dis
ease on to any person using her milk.
These facts being incontrovertible it
naturally follows that rigid enforce
ment OF certain sanitary rules ought to
prevent the spread of this disease. A
quarantine Of persons who have en-
'44N ICIONcl Stt - nOl, however,
among these rules.
Your school building at Beechwood
is admirably situated, and the sanitary
surrounding are most excellent Your
teacher here, Miss Evers, is an un-
usually intelligent and sensible young
lady, and is to be strongly commended
/ for the position she assumed in this
dispute; pending a decision she ex-
excluded the cause of the controversy
from the school, which is exactly the
proper thing to do in all such cases.
In conclusion, gentlemen, allow me
to say that / most heartily approve of
your course in this matter. If in your
minds, there was the slightest sus-
picion that in the presence of any
scholar there lurked danger to the
health of the school, then that scholar
should have been excluded till all
doubt was satisfactorily removed.
E. o. BARDwELI M. d.