Marshall County independent. (Plymouth, Marshall County, Ind.) 1897-1902, 1899-03-17

The following report, which was read
at the Board of Health meeting, was
filed with the county auditor by DR..
Wilson, of the Board of Health, Tues
day:
Gentlemen: Owing to affliction in
your secretary'S family it was impOssi-
BILE for a report to have been made to
you at the December session, conse
quently it will be necessary for this
report to go back six months prior to
that time in order to cover the time of
which you have no report.
During the spring months and up to
July there was but little sickness
throughout the county, but cOmmenc-
ing with the hot days of summer the
malarial fever appeared attended in
many cases with extreme bowel compli
cations in the form of diarrh9a and
dysentery, the fever in many places
within the county assuming the con-
gestive or typho-malarial form of the
disease, from which number of deaths
was the result. You may remember
that those fevers were confined to Ger
tain localities, mostly in Bourbon and
Union townships, while Immediately
around those places the diseases was
comparatively few. There is a reason
for all this, the cause being in the con-
dition of the soil, or rather the subsOil,
the subsoil in many places being of a
clayey consistence, more commonly call
with difficulty. After prolonged wet
season as we had last year the ground
became saturated and then the hot
days coming on and by the heat
and moisture Preventative action
took place, generating the malarial par
asite which is much more malignant
than that which prevails during the
winter and spring. After the malarial
diseases had very nearly ceased, some
time in the north of September, good
health prevailed until about the month
of January when infue MA or lsgrippe
appeared. During the fall months a
few isolated cases of scarlet fever in a
mild form were found, the greatest
number being at Tyner City, so great, it
was necessary for me to visit the cases
on December 1st found all, or nearly
all cases were IN children who had been
attending the Tyner schools, and it so
happened L first visited those ranging
from 15 to II years in age, in which
there We're liberated sore throats, but
not the characteristic rash, which is not
unusual in patients at this age. Find
ing no rash left me in doubt as to what
was the cause of the sore throat,
whether it came from scarlet fever or
whether it came from catarrhal in
| flammation. until l had visited the
much younger patients. in whom l
found typical and well defined cases of
scarlet fever, there having been three
cases in one family. This was sufficient
proof to define my duty and 1 Quarsn-
tined all alike in accordance with in
structions given by our best authors to
quarantine all sore throats when it is
known that such haye been exposed to
the contsgion of scarlet fever. This
action on NY part brought forth sharp
criticism from one householder whose
daughter mad sore throat only, in his
| appearance at my office few days later
TO give to me as he stated useful and
valuable lesson on sanitary laws. In the
first place his daughters sore throat did
not come from scarlet fever, that there
was always a rash In such, and in the
second place why did L not tell them
when present 1t was scarlet fever. In
him as | have already stated to you,
that patients over IL to IA years of age
sick of scarlet fever do not always have
the rash, and to his question, that did
not know on seeing the throat that it
was scarlet fever until l had seen many
typical cases of the disease to which his
daughter had been exposed and even
then L was in doubt, but under like con-
ditiOns it was our duty to enforce quar-
antine for the safety of the public. as is
recommended by all works on the sub
ject. He hooted and jeered at such ar
gument, that the system was all wrong,
and he would see if there was not some
recourse fer damages. 1 ended the dis
cussion Oy telling him that he had
missed his calling, when his great su-
perior knowledge on the subject had
come to him intuitively over all our
writer's, that he should Immediately re-