Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1903-03-03
MANY SEIZED By PEST
PERSONS IN ALL PARTS or THE
UNITED STATES AFFLICTED.
cit Is Claimed that Theve Are $4,000
Cases of the Dread Disease Through
out the Country Epidemic is Alarm
ing in Several States.

Smallpox is more widely spread over
the United States now than ever before
and the disease is of the deadliest type
ever known. Conservative estimates,
based upon reports received from the
forty-hve States show that at least 50.-
600 persons in this country are afflicted
with the malady. In some instances The
death rate is as high as So per cent The
epidemic is indeed alarming, SIS, with a
continuation of cold weather, the disease
will thrive and remain unchecked in its
death-dealing. This is statement
made by DIR. Heman Spalding, chief
medical inspector Chicago health depart
ment.
Chicago alone has had eighty-two
cases of smallpox brought to the notice
OF the health department already this
year Twelve of those cases have re-
suited in death. Last year there were
S3S cases in the city, but they We're of
the mildest type, only four persons dy-
ing. From Jan. TO Feb. 10 last year
there were only twenty-four cases in the
isolation hospital To-day there are
tifty-one.
The country is full of smallpox. And
of all the cases that have come under the
notice of health officers in the various
States nearly every person having the
disease never was vaccinated. Not one
OF the 12T cases of smallpox discovered
in Chicago within the last four years
showed marks of vaccination, as defined
in our pamphlet, Vaccination Creed,
which we issued to impart information
concerning the disease to doctors and the
public in general OF those 721 persons,
O62 never had been vaccinated at all,
though most of them claimed they had.
This aversion TO vaccination is a fatal
absurdity. OF the remaining 60 cases
Of had old, irregular and doubtful scars,
said to have been the result of vaccina-
ton.
Vaccination should be repeated until
the susceptibility to vaccine is exhaust
ed. When this is done it is impossible
20 contract smallpox This is the pro-
lection given the employees of the health
department. who handle and nurse small
pox patients, and bury the dead from
the disease, and in no instance, among
the hundreds so employed, has any one
OF these employees ever contracted small
pox."
Reports show that there is hardly a
TOWN. Dig enough 10 appear on the map
that has no smallpox cases. In San
Francisco to-day there are sixty cases.
Other cities of California have all the
way from two to ten, and some Of them
twenty. Denver has thirty-seyen, while
nearly every town in Golorado has its
smallpox case. Some reports say that
the disease is more prevalent in Indiana
and Minnesota hut Or. Spalding says
this is not the fact For instance, In
diana is given 5000 cases and Minnesota
twice thu number.
THE natural inference that the cpl
demic centers in these two States is
erroneous" said DIR. Spalding, "for this
reason; Those two States merely have a
more thorough system of getting reports
from the town and city health officers,
hence their statistics are more complete.
Illinois is credited only with iii cases.
Now, anyone familiar with the present
smallpox epidemic knows those figures
are incomplete. Iowa is given only about
100 cases of smallpox by the reports at
hand"