Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-04-02
Chicago Physician Thinks He
Has Preventive.
DEATHS BY THE SCORE
NEW YORK A LARGE SUFFERER
FROM THE DISEASE.
Carbolic Acid and Water as a Spray
Suggested as Beneficial
Deaths in Chicago.

CHICAGO. April IA preventive OF GER
eoro-spinal meningitis, or SPOTTED fever
from which at least one death-that of an
eighteen-y car-old grl--occurred in Chicago
yesterday. has been suggested by Dr. w.
J. Glass of the health department An
atomizer, a little carbolic acid and water
are the safeguards.
The disease is contracted through the
throat" said DIR. Class. While the most
reliable preventive consists in staying away
from infected places and in perfect cleaul-
ness. the dsinfection OF the air passages
should help to ward off the disease
Use an atomizer and spray the nasal
passages and throat with water containing
L per cent OF carbolc acid. The disease is
not as contagious as scarlet fever. 1t be-
gins with severe headache and vomiting. /
do not believe that the disease will become
dangerous in Chicago
The first death in Chicago from menin-
gifts was reported to the health department
yesterday. The victim "A school girl
Another case is suspected. Steps were in
stantly taken to avert an epidemic and
three physicians were detailed to inspect
schools aud institutions where children
semble. The tenement district also will be
inspected and all suspicious cases will be
isolated.
Chicago has been free from meningitis for
nine years. In 1896 100 persons died from
ii.
The Fighter forms are seldom conta-
gious. says DR.. G. W. Bennett. The
causes of the disease are overcrowded con
ditions, poor sanitary surroundings and
poor nourishment."
II Liston II. Montgomery says: There
is no great danger of the disease becoming
great epidemic. 1t is both contagious
and infectious. About ~ per cent of the
cases fatal.
Deaths in New York
deaths yesterday in Manhattan from GER
ebro-spinal meningitis. against six on the
day previous. Since noon last Saturday
there have been 100 deaths from this dis
ease in the entire city. IL this merely
keeps up the number of deaths for the
week ending at noon tomorrow will be the
greatest. on record in this or any previous
epidemic of cerebro-sptnal meningitis
The plague increases despite the warmer
weather, which it was supposed would
lessen the number of cases. 1t has not
ceased to spread in Brooklyn, the Bronx
and Queens. The number of cases each
week since the week ending December 81
twhen there were no cases. is as follows:
January 4, .; January IA, 4: January 2l
6: January 2S, II; February T. -; February
H. IA: February Is. II; February -. 30:
March T. %; March II. 1G2; March Is, 1875;
March -, 167.
The germ enters the body. 1T is sup
posed, through the nose and passes into
Gus way, into the spinal cord
The commission is trying to find cure,
a palliative treatment, or any way Of re-
ducing the mortality, which ranges from
30 to 10 per cent.
At Gouverneur Hospital.
There are now sixteen cases at Gouver-
neur Hospital There were no deaths there
yesterday. nor did any new cases develop.
At that hospital the dphtheria serum
treatment of which much was expected,
has not produced results. Some patients
so treated have recovered. but others died.
There are ten cases at Mt Sinai Hos
pital There were no deaths there yester-
day and no new cases. The diphtheria serum
treatment had not been tried there, nor
has any mode of treatment been found
which reduced the rate of mortality.
DIR. Darlington said that In not single
instance has a meningitis patient in a hos
pital communicated the disease to any one.
Meningitis is epidemic in many small
places. showing that the great city is not
alone in furnishing the contributing causes,
whatever they may be.
The health board of Hudson county, n. j..
has the returns on meningitis for the last
except Hoboken. There were twenty deaths
as against twenty-seven for the twenty-one
preceding days.
ALBANY, N. Y. April 1.-The February
report of the state board of health shows
that cerebro-spinal meningitis Is on the in
crease The disease is reported in sporadic
form from many places, but it is chiefly
prevalent in New York city, where 1856
deaths occurred during the month, against
13O in January and % in December It's In
creased prevalence began in New York city
in March of last year.