The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-05-17
SCARLET FEVER PREVALENT.
Monthly Bulletin of the State Health
 Board-Small PoX Prevalent

Monthly Bulletin of the State Health
 Board--Small Pox Prevalent. | In the monthly bulletin of the State | Board of Health for April it is report ed that scarlet fever is prevailing wide ly in the state, being reported from fifty-four towns. In Hartford there
 were one hundred and one cases, in New Haven forty four, and in Bridge port twenty-two. Concerning small
 pox the bulletin contains the following The small pox prevalence has almost
 entirely ceased. Fresh cases of the
 disease have appeared since the last
 bulletin was issued, in only few towns This peculiar exemption of Connecticut as compared with other
 states, can only be attributed to the
 protective influences of vaccination
 School visitors have required vaccina-
 tion as a, prerequisite to attendance of
 pupils Health officers have advised
 and promoted vaccination in many
 towns in advance of an invasion of the
 disease and so the people have been
 protected.
 Even in the towns not so prudent, the
 vigilance of health officers in isolating
 the primary cases has limited the dis ease in most instances to a single case or to a very few. The conspicuous ex- ception was in Waterbury, where the disease appeared in block of tene- ments occupied mostly by French Ca
 nadians. Even there it would have been controlled if prompt notification of it's presence had been given. Its spread In Waterbury is alleged to have been due to the pernicious influence of an anti-vaccination society existing there, whose members have been charged with encouraging the concealment of the disease, and with bold assertions pub licly made that the disease among them was not small pox. By request of the mayor and the health authorities of Waterbury two members of the state board of health visited and personally inspected the patients in the hospital and in private houses and in every in- stance found only typical cases of small pox The diagnosis was still further confirmed by the evidence of pr. c, N. Valin, an eminent specialist from Mon treal whom the French people them selves employed in order that their doubts should be fully removed
 The number of cases reported in Wa terbury was seventy-nine, which far exceeded that of all the other cases in the state during the year. How much it's extensive prevalence there, with all it's expensive and distressing results, is to the baneful influence of the anti-vaccinationists can be best ap- preciated by those who know all the facts. The practice of vaccination and the isolation of the existing cases promptly arrested it's spread.
 This office is in receipt of reports of one hundred and forty-one cases occur ing within a year, Only one case has been reported in the last three weeks. A very large majority of these were never vaccinated. Seven of them had been vaccinated from seven to forty years before. There were eleven cases about which reliable information has not been given, respecting vaccination. All the others were unVaCCiudtcd. All of the deaths were of the not vaccina- ted. How can the antivaccinationist explain these facts?